The Road to War
by LiveforCheese
Summary: Prior to the events of Resident Evil 6, a new BSAA agent on the trail of a cross strain of the T-Virus and Las Plagas is forced to rely on private military contractors for help in a desperate attempt to stop a power hungry warlord in Edonia.
1. Prologue

PROLOGUE

Warsaw Chopin International Airport, Poland

4:00 pm September 16th, 2010

A balding, middle-aged customs agent smiled warmly at the beautiful, dark-haired woman's piercing blue eyes. He spoke in Romanian, asking "Miss Lavorya is your visit to Poland business or pleasure?"

"Business," she replied coolly.

"Do you have anything you wish to declare?" he asked as he stamped her Official Romanian passport.

"No."

"I hope you enjoy your stay," he said, handing her the passport and smiling again.

"Thank you," she said, taking her passport and putting it in her jacket pocket next to her other identification and credentials. She worked for the Bio-Terror Security Assessment Alliance, which was an international organization with specially trained operatives all over the globe. As a Special Operations Agent, or SOA, her job was to locate current and former biological weapons researchers and determine their capabilities and the level of threat they posed. If necessary, she was authorized to take action to prevent the production or use of biological weapons anywhere in her assigned region. SOA's were stationed all around the world and worked together to create a compiled database of bio-terror threats and to put an end to the use of bio-weapons.

Karina Lavorya had been with the BSAA for five years, ever since she'd left her broken dream of being a police officer in Bucharest behind her. After she graduated from college, she went to the academy, easily passing the qualifications and completing the training. She tried, for three years, to become a respected officer and to make a difference in the city she grew up in, but she never really got the chance to. Being a woman, especially one as attractive as she was, made the predominantly male force uncomfortable. Her assigned job was to answer telephones and radios while she struggled the entire time with her superiors to do something, anything more important.

When she started getting offers for advancement in exchange for "favors" she quit and began looking outside of Romania for a career in law enforcement. Eventually, she applied for a position with Interpol, since she was fluent in four languages, but the man she interviewed with had to decline, because she simply did not have enough experience. She was on the verge of venting her frustrations on the poor man when he informed her of the new organization forming in the United States. He provided her with the contact information and she immediately applied.

After obtaining her visa she travelled to Washington D.C. for the interview and a brief selection process. Afterwards, she stayed in Virginia for the training courses, which heavily involved the procedures used for the investigation and assessment of bio-engineering. She also learned how to use a wide variety of weapons, communications equipment, emergency medical and life saving techniques, and how to safely handle viral specimen. What she learned about biological weapons and the threat they posed terrified her, but it also made her more resolute that what she was doing was important. It gave her more drive.

After eight long months of training six days a week she returned to Europe to report to the BSAA's Eastern European branch, headquartered in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. She had been on assignment after assignment since she arrived, constantly tracking down scientists and doctors who had taken refuge in the former Soviet Bloc nations. In the line of duty she had faced many of the horrors she'd studied during training, from the walking dead to parasite controlled mutations and even genetically engineered weapons designed to hunt and kill any and all living things.

During investigations, the SOA's usually worked alone, but when interdiction was necessary they were commonly paired with another local agent, sometimes even a tactical Special Operations Unit. The twelve man SOU's trained solely to identify and combat bio-weapons of all kinds. With an SOU backing her up on operations, Karina knew that there was no limit to the good she could do with the organization.

She walked to the baggage claim area of the airport and collected her black deployment bag and hard plastic gun case, then flashed the customs checkpoint her BSAA credentials, passing right through the baggage check point. The airport security officers all over Eastern Europe were getting accustomed to seeing the ID badges and waved her through without a word. She ignored the leers of the men as she passed and walked to the passenger pick-up area outside. As she stepped through the automatic doors she heard a car horn, and then saw a tall man with dark hair step out of the driver's seat of a black Land Rover. He smiled brightly as she headed for the car and she couldn't help but smile in return.

"Levi," she said, speaking English, one of two languages they shared, "so good to see you again."

"Always a pleasure working with the BSAA's finest," he replied, his voice deep and thickly accented, "How have you been?"

"Busy," she answered as they loaded her things into the back of the SUV, "unfortunately."

He shut the rear hatch and they got in the front seats. Levi started the car and maneuvered it through the heavy airport traffic to get on the highway. The afternoon sun was out and the sky was a clear blue, a beautiful autumn day. She looked at the city skyline as they drove onto the highway and imagined how pleasant it would be to just take a few days to wander around Warsaw and enjoy the city. Then they passed under an overpass and her view was blocked, which brought her attention back to why she was there.

"I read the file on Dr. Leukin during the flight," she said, referring to the Investigation and Assessment Report he'd written and sent in, "when do you plan to move in on this?"

"We're headed to his laboratory now," he said, confidently steering his way through the traffic, "According to an informant I have, a few days ago Leukin contacted one of the crime syndicates about hiring a smuggler. I believe he plans to move very soon, if he hasn't already."

"Did he have any information about what virus the doctor's been working on?" she asked.

"No," he answered, "All I know is that he was part of the team that theorized the creation of the T-Virus. We don't even know that he ever actually worked on it."

"And we don't know who's funding his current work?" she pressed.

"Not yet, but we're hoping to find out shortly."

"How long will it take to get there?" she asked, looking at the flowing traffic ahead of them.

"Maybe an hour," he said, smiling before continuing, "There are some Red Bulls in the cooler behind my seat."

She smiled back. They'd gone through the training course together and both of them had nearly lived on the energy drink during that rigorous period of time. Two years ago, he'd joined her in Romania for a case, searching a ruined Transylvanian estate for traces of bio-weapons she had learned were hidden somewhere inside. When he had arrived to work with her she'd been ready with a few cold Red Bulls and now he was just returning the favor.

She reached back and grabbed a couple of them, handing one to Levi and opening the other for her. As they drove, Levi filled her in on what he knew about the layout of the laboratory, which wasn't very much. From what he'd learned from the contact, Leukin was using an old railroad station that had been abandoned since the second World War, when the town it serviced was bombed to rubble by the Stalin's Red Army along with part of the station itself. From what little information Levi could find about the station he assumed that the doctor was using the underground mechanical and storage rooms for his work. No blueprints still existed anywhere for the station and the trains that ran on the tracks just passed by it on the way into the city. The building was officially listed by the local governance as condemned, but since no one wanted the land, it was never demolished.

He explained to Karina his theory that whoever was funding the project must have provided the doctor with some sort of security at the site, but he couldn't even begin to guess how much. Without knowing who was pulling the strings they'd be going in pretty much blind. Karina knew that Levi was an exceptional agent and, if anyone else had asked for her help with as little intelligence as he had, she'd have flat out refused. As it was, she was confident that the two of them would be able to handle whatever was waiting for them at the railroad station.

They left the highway and began moving through rural farmlands on country roads. Levi used a GPS navigation system to guide him down some dirt roads leading farther into the forested countryside. Eventually he pulled off into a clearing along the side of the road and parked the Land Rover, shutting off the engine.

"We'll move on foot from here to avoid any early detection on the roads," he said as he opened his door to get out.

Karina exited the comfortable SUV and noticed how cool it had gotten since the sun had set during their drive. They walked to the back of the vehicle and Levi opened it then reached in for his duffle bag next to Karina's things. He unzipped his bag and pulled out his gear while Karina removed hers from her black deployment bag.

She belted on a magazine pouch for her three reloads and a small radio pouch on her left hip, a compact trauma medical pouch at her back, and drop leg pistol holster on her right side. She buckled her belt and then the leg strap of the holster before she removed her jacket, shrugged on a shoulder harness, and attached it to the belt. It helped keep all the weight off of her hips and it had a cord woven through it, with a plug near the radio pouch at her waist and the other side plugged into a push-to-talk device attached to the harness at her left shoulder. From a small plastic box she grabbed an earpiece and bone mic which she plugged into the PTT box and fit around her left ear.

After putting her jacket back on she pulled out the black case and opened the small combination lock. Inside was her radio, her Beretta M9 pistol with a gun light mounted on a rail attachment that had been bolted on to it, and four empty magazines. She removed a box of nine millimeter hollow point rounds from her bag and started loading them into the mags with Levi's help. She put three in the belt pouch and slid the fourth in her weapon, pulling back the slide and letting it go to chamber a round. She slid it back just enough to confirm that she had a round in the chamber and let it go again. She tested the light to make sure the batteries were still good and then holstered her sidearm. Levi shut and locked the truck when they were both ready.

He used a handheld GPS device to guide them as they left the vehicle and travelled on foot through the dark woods. A rising full moon and star filled country night sky gave them just enough illumination to pick their way safely between the trees and underbrush. Levi led the way with Karina following silently behind, alert and cautious.

Half an hour later they could see a field ahead of them, past the end of the tree line they were cutting through. When they reached the last trees Levi pulled a small monocular night vision device from a pouch on his belt. Karina could just make out the raised railroad tracks far to their left and the outline of the train station ahead of them, across the field. It wasn't an especially large building but the empty darkness made her feel a little uncomfortable. Levi studied the structure and grounds for a few minutes.

"I don't see any movement in or around it," he whispered to her, "Let's cross this field as quickly as we can and find a way inside."

She followed his lead as he kept himself in a half crouch and ran across the field of tall, wild grass, his hand hovering near his holster. They sped across and stopped next to the wall of the short side, perpendicular to the train tracks. They took a minute or so to catch their breath before they began to creep to the right corner where he slowly peeked around. Seeing nothing he again used the monocular to double check the front of the station. He returned it to his pouch and turned to her nodding.

She nodded back and they moved silently around the corner, travelling along the long wall that faced the town, which lay in forgotten ruins far to their right. She watched the broken and boarded windows as they crept onward, looking for any light or signs of movement inside. Levi paused before the steps leading to the main entrance to listen for any sounds from inside, and then carefully climbed the few steps up to the landing in front of the main entrance.

The double doors of the main entrance were covered with a plywood barrier and Levi gently pushed on it, finding it securely attached to the walls on either side with heavy bolts. Breaking it down would cause too much noise, so he and Karina left the landing and continued to move along the wall. At the far end was a railing around a concrete stairwell that led down into the ground. Using a flashlight with a red lens filter, he descended the dark stairs and inspected a rusting metal door at the bottom, leading into the basement of the train station.

The handle and lock on the door appeared new, which meant that this was most likely the entrance that Dr. Leukin used. He motioned for Karina to take a look and she smiled, producing a set of lock picks from her jacket pocket. All agents were taught the basics of lock-picking during their training, but she kept practicing and honing the art over the years. She'd heard one of the figureheads of the B.S.A.A. extolling the importance of the skill in their line of work during one of her lectures. This was not the first time Karina had used the skill during an operation. In just a few minutes of methodically raking the plungers with her pick she was rewarded with a satisfying click as her tension bar rotated and the lock opened.

She replaced the lock picks and stood up, taking one step back as both she and Levi drew their pistols, her left hand on the handle. He nodded at her and she turned the handle and pushed the door open. The rusty hinges creaked as Levi rushed by her with his weapon up, shining his gun light inside. She followed him into a long, empty hallway that led back under the front side of the train station for about thirty meters.

The damp air was still and had a musty, almost stagnant kind of smell. There were two doors other than the entrance, both on the right side of the hallway, leading under the structure above. The first was only a few meters in front of Levi while the other was at the far end of the hall, barely visible except for the sliver of light coming from underneath it. On the ceiling in the center of the hall were a couple of broken light bulbs hanging from rusted boxes that were connected to an old conduit which led through a hole directly across from them into the room next door.

Levi moved down the hallway silently and deliberately, Karina followed him as they approached the first door. From inside they heard a metallic clunk and she thought she could hear voices behind the heavy metal door. There was no sliver of light under the foot of this door, just darkness and the filthy stone floor. Levi grabbed the handle and shoved the door open, about to step through with Karina a half step behind him, when he jumped back.

In the shifting beams of illumination from their weapon lights she saw a man lunging at Levi. The skin of his hands and arms was pale and covered with sores and his beard was crusted with dried blood. His jaw was open in a vicious snarl and he was in mid growl when Levi fired, the sound echoing loudly off of the stone walls. The man was silenced and went limp, falling forward into the hallway with a gruesome exit wound in the back of his head. The two agents stood on either side of the doorway, flooding the room with bright white light.

Through the door Karina saw more men, all wearing ragged and torn clothing, resembling destitute refugees or homeless drifters. Their hair was unkempt, long, and stringy with grime and blood covering their hands and bearded faces. Their skin was pale and looked like it was rotting already. She recognized the symptoms of the T-Virus infection, one of the first bio-weapons, which killed within days of infection and then reanimated the corpses. The undead creations existed only to feed on human flesh. They were pushing against each other to get through an open doorway in what looked like a cage that had been constructed inside the large, otherwise empty room.

Levi fired from the left side of the doorway and she took aim from the right, placing her sights on one of the men's faces. She fired, seeing her round strike him in the face, just to the right of his nose under his eye. The undead stumbled back and she aimed at the next one, firing quickly. She kept shooting, taking head shots to try and put the creatures coming out of the cage down permanently. It was the only way to stop someone who had been infected with the horrifying virus.

Levi fired until his slide locked back and he quickly dropped the empty magazine from the pistol and reloaded a full one from the pouch on his belt. Karina fired until she couldn't see any more from her angle, so she sidestepped closer to Levi and aimed at the last two from directly in front of the doorway. She fired at the first and was transitioning to the next when Levi saw a head poke out of the door at the end of the hall. It disappeared and was replaced by the barrel of an AK-47 assault rifle.

He swore in Polish and shoved Karina into the room, just barely clearing the doorway himself when the automatic weapon fired a loud burst of rounds down the hallway. Karina stumbled over the bodies near the doorway and pitched headfirst into the last of the undead creatures in the cage. She tried to push it away as she fell to her knees but it grabbed her right arm tightly, leaning down to bite into her.

She screamed and pulled it in as she swung her free hand. Her left fist slammed into its chin and its head jerked up. She could visibly see that its jaw was broken, but still it held her arm in a vice-like grip. Levi fired at it but pulled the shot, too afraid of hitting Karina, and missed it. She grabbed its throat with her left hand and pushed herself up off the floor with all the strength she had in her legs. It was still pulling her arm closer to its mouth as she shoved it backwards, gaining momentum as the clumsy creature stumbled.

She rammed its head against the stone wall of the back of the room, hearing a sickening crack from the back of its skull. She jerked her right arm back sharply, creating enough space for her to point her pistol and fire quickly. After two rapid shots, point blank to its head, the thing let go of her arm and fell to the floor as she stepped away, breathing heavily. Looking down at her Beretta she saw the slide locked back on the empty magazine.

"You okay?" Levi asked.

"Yes," she answered as she reloaded her weapon, "but that was too close."

Levi tried to peek out into the hallway but wasn't even able to see anything before another burst of rounds was fired blindly down the hall, some of them slamming into the edge of the doorway across from him. He swore and reached around the doorframe with his pistol, firing a few shots before more automatic fire made him jerk his hand band in. Karina quickly swept around the room with her gun light, finding a door inside the back of the cage that led to another room.

"There's a door here," she told Levi, "I'll try to get around them. Keep him busy."

Levi was about to protest her going in alone, but she was through the door before he could say anything. He was left trying to keep the gunner's attention without getting himself shot.

Karina entered what used to be a mechanical access room. Boilers for heating the train station and large hydraulic systems that controlled the rail switches and loading crane lined the wall to her right. The machinery was covered in a thick layer of dust and moldy cobwebs. The far wall, which would have been closest to the tracks, had a long panel with gauges and valves, but the glass and instruments were so clouded with dust and moisture that she couldn't tell what any of them were for. To her left, along the inside wall, was an old workbench with broken cabinets beneath a scarred and pitted surface, caked in dried blood and reeking of rot. There was a door on the left wall, between two newer looking metal shelves stocked with various medical tools and supplies. She could see light from the next room spilling onto the floor from beneath the door.

In the center of the room were two heavy wooden tables with thick leather restraints bolted around them. They were covered in blood stains of all shades, from bright crimson to nearly black. Karina figured that this was probably where the creatures in the next room were created. She could picture it like it was happening in front of her; Dr. Leukin would have lured the desperate men in and used them as his test subjects, drugging them heavily before strapping them down and infecting them with the virus, just to study how they were affected. He'd probably have started by injecting it himself, but then later let the other creations in to bite and infect the subjects. Their last moments of life would have been absolutely horrific and full of agonizing pain.

She switched off her gun light as she moved towards the door. There was a noise from the other side, but the gunfire in the hallway prevented her from determining what it was. The door suddenly pushed open from the other side and she could see the silhouette of a man holding an AK-47 standing in the doorway. He was turning to aim at her when she fired her pistol at him, striking him in the neck. He dropped the rifle on the floor and his hands went to his throat to stop the spurting blood. He stumbled back and fell to his knees, eyes wide with panic, almost pleading with Karina for help. She realigned her sights and fired a second round centered on his forehead. He fell over silently while Karina quickly moved to the door and grabbed the AK. She holstered her pistol and checked the rifle to make sure it was loaded then she looked into the well lit room from the doorway.

The room was long, stretching from the hallway on her left to the back of the basement on her right. There were four tables that ran across the room in rows, each one covered in medical and research equipment with metal cabinets beneath the busy work surfaces. She recognized many of the instruments and knew exactly what the doctor was using them for. The wall across from her was lined with filing cabinets, more metal shelves, and refrigerator storage units. There was a large metal desk set up in the far corner with a computer on top of it along with stacks of folders. To the left, at the far end of the long room, was the door to the hallway where a man stood reloading his assault rifle with a full magazine.

She stepped in to aim at the man when he noticed the movement and began spraying rounds, holding his rifle at his hip. Karina dove behind the nearest work table and tried to crawl forward as rounds struck the equipment on top of the table and through the cabinets around her. Papers and pieces of equipment were flying all over the lab as the gunner recklessly fired, trying to get a lucky shot on her. She kept moving forward to the end of the table, hidden from his view by the cabinets. She heard an agonizing scream from behind her, at the opposite side of the room from the gunner in the doorway, and Karina worried that there were more gun men closing in on her from the other side. She got up, crouching at the end of the table as more rounds tore through the thin metal of the cabinets under the table.

She slid around the end of the table and stood with her rifle up as the man was swinging his towards her, but she pulled her trigger first. The first two rounds of her short burst struck him in his left hip and bicep, the force of the impacting rounds pushed him out into the hallway where she watched a round pass through his head from the left. He fell to the right, dead. A second later, Levi was at the door.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Fine," she shouted, as she turned towards the back of the lab, "I think there's one more in here."

Levi moved up the inside wall while Karina crept up the outside wall, clearing between the ruined work tables as they went until they reached the desk in the corner. The computer monitor had bullet holes in it and was knocked over and the front of the desk had several more holes through it. Behind the desk, next to an overturned chair, was a scrawny young man, doubled over on the floor, holding his stomach. His white shirt was covered in blood that seeped through his fingers as he tried to stop the bleeding bullet wound in his gut. He coughed up blood as they walked over to him.

Levi kept his pistol aimed at the young man and asked, "Who are you? Where is Leukin?"

The man gasped for breath between coughs and said, "He's gone. The virus is gone."

"Where?" Levi shouted.

The man gritted his teeth, refusing to answer.

Levi placed his boot over the man's hands and began to press in on his abdomen. He started screaming in pain, which turned into a bloody, hacking gurgle as Levi kept putting pressure on his wound. After a few agonizing moments he lifted his boot and the man rolled on the floor in pain, spitting up blood.

"You're as good as dead," Levi told him, "Leukin used you and left you to deal with the aftermath. Whatever payoff he promised you, you will never see, I can guarantee that. Unless you want to die right there, you had better start cooperating."

He ground his teeth again in fury until Levi started lifting his foot over the man's abdomen, at which point he cried, "Alright! He sold the virus to Urchenko; he's the man who set up all of this."

Karina looked at Levi and said, "Andru Urchenko, he's a brutal warlord who has been trying to overthrow the government in Edonia and reinstitute a dictatorship; he is an animal," She looked at the young man writhing on the floor, "but not reckless. How does he plan to control the T-Virus?"

The man weakly nodded at the desk and said, "It's all in the files on the hard drive. There are summaries of what we created in those folders, the first true biological _weapon_."

"We'll have the computer sent to headquarters", Levi told Karina, "but we need to follow the virus." He looked down at the man again and asked, "Levi hired a smuggler, yes? How do we find him?"

"He is a Ukrainian. Leukin picked him so he could transport the virus by land. That's all I know about him."

"When did he leave?" Karina asked.

"This morning," the man replied, choking in pain.

"Where did Leukin go?" Levi asked.

The man just shook his head, wheezing and gasping for air.

"We should follow the virus. We can fly to Edonia in just a couple of hours and try to pick up the smuggler at the border," Karina told Levi.

"I'll call HQ and have an ambulance sent immediately," Levi suggested, holstering his pistol and starting back towards the door, "See if you can do anything for him."

She nodded and quickly patted the man down for weapons before reaching around to her trauma pouch and removing the contents. She peeled his sticky hands away from the wound and stuffed a wad of cotton gauze in it. He shook and wretched at the pain. She slid her hands beneath him to check for an exit wound, but found none, so she started wrapping a large abdominal dressing around him. As she was tying it he said something, but his voice was so weak she had to lean in to hear what he was saying.

"It's unstoppable," he choked, "the perfect weapon."

She tightened the knot with a jerk and he winced, his eyes rolling back, and passed out. She stared at him for a few moments, making sure that he was still breathing before she started gathering the folders and the computer hard drive. She and Levi waited until an ambulance and the police showed up. They instructed the police not to disturb the scene until a team of medical specialists from the B.S.A.A. arrived to contain everything and help sterilize the laboratory. The two agents got a ride to their car from an officer and got back on the road, headed for the airport. They barely had time to repack their gear and clean up before they were boarding a small jet for Edonia.


	2. Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

Edonian Royal Trade Highway

12 Miles south of the capital, Antrusia

12:35 am September 19th, 2010

A three vehicle convoy travelled south along the main highway that bisected the Republic of Edonia, heading for a small camp of volunteer fighters that stood against the rebel warlord trying to overthrow the government. Edonia had a small standing army, but the nation was relatively young and the forces defending it were still unorganized and under equipped. Villages in various regions banded together, forming small militias pledged to defend their nation, but the overwhelmed government was unable to provide assistance from within its own ranks, so they pleaded with NATO and neighboring countries for help, but no one was willing to risk their political positions by going against a well connected threat like Andru Urchenko, the warlord leading the rebellion.

While the United States government decided it was beneficial to assist the small country, which was rich in mineral resources, it was still reeling from the mess in the Middle East, so they could not support the small country with military forces; however, they did agree to help fund various Private Military Contracting companies to support the militia fighters. The PMCs were hired to send teams that would help train and organize the militias to fight the guerilla forces led by Andru and his brothers, Baz and Damein. The men who were offered the contracts were veterans of special operations forces from various services and nations. They were disciplined, motivated, and had all of their training and years of experience to offer. Specialized teams were formed and sent to Edonia with some of the finest equipment in the world to help them support the Edonian government in its struggle.

The three vehicle convoy on the road was manned by contractors from a multinational company, Denver Security Group, based out of southeastern Colorado. The founder, Terrance Denver, affectionately referred to as John by his friends, founded the company with a small group of fellow military retirees in 2004. They recruited men and women from all around the world to fill the teams and John, along with the other founders, took out huge loans to purchase equipment to outfit them with. Because they asked the teams what kind of gear they would need to be successful, the men were outfitted with newer and better equipment than most military units. He also took ideas from the employees and hired engineers to start building prototypes of some of the best new equipment conceived. The company flourished during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while also taking contracts in Africa, Europe, and Southeast Asia.

The six men in the vehicles were part of an eight man team that had been in Antrusia only a few weeks. They were still waiting for the last two team members to be selected and sent out to fill the team, but the six of them functioned well together, many of them had been on the team for a number of years. The team leader was Thom Sabin, a former Australian S.A.S. team leader and a giant of a man. At six foot five and two hundred and forty-five pounds with blonde hair and green eyes, Thom looked every bit like a rowdy Aussie rugby captain. While he liked to behave accordingly in his free time, when he was on a contract he was as professional a soldier as could be found anywhere in the world. Thom had worked for DSG for just under four years and had been a Detail Leader for three of those. He sat in the passenger seat of the lead Humvee, operating a radio scanner that looked for any frequencies within a few hundred meters of them, trying to listen for any trouble ahead of them.

Driving his truck was Carter Miles, a former U.S. Central Intelligence Agency operative who was responsible for building their intelligence network and supplying their intelligence analyst with information he could use to begin targeting Andru's forces. Carter was six feet tall with an athletic build, large, expressive brown eyes and kept his hair cut short. Having operated in Eastern Europe most of his career, Carter spoke Russian and Romanian fluently and even though he stood out as a black man in the Slavic nations he was an expert at influencing others to work for him, whether they knew they were or not. When the wars in the Middle East forced the agency to cut back on its operations in other parts of the world, Carter decided to go to work for DSG to continue operating in the region he knew the most about.

The second truck in their convoy was a flatbed truck that had been rented from the locals for their militia's use. Driving it was Ibrahim Kavid, a former Israeli Military Intelligence officer and Moussad agent who served as the team's intelligence analyst and Assistant Detail Leader to Thom. He was slightly older than the rest of the team and had a calculating personality that appeared cold at first. Once the team warmed up to him they found him to have a sharp sense of humor and that he genuinely cared about what he was doing. He was of average height and build with slightly graying-black, curly hair and dark brown eyes, but he was a ferocious fighter when he was pressed into combat. Considering that he had been fighting since he was twelve years old, he had twice as much experience as anyone else on the team and had been Thom's second in command for three years.

Driving the rear Humvee was their Detail Medic, Marcos Del-Rios, a former Navy S.E.A.L. who started as a Corpsman assigned to a Marine Expeditionary Force. At six feet tall and a very fit one hundred and eighty pounds, Marcos looked and acted like the typical Seal, over-confident to the point of being obnoxious, more because he thought it was funny than because he actually believed it. He had a quick wit and natural charm that he attributed to his Latino heritage, along with his good looks. When push came to shove, though, he was an absolute warrior and the team could not have asked for a better medic. He'd been with the team for two years and they would have been lost without him and his high sense of drive and determination.

In the turret of the last truck was the team's new guy, a former Combat Applications Group communications support member named Jeff Stringer. While he wasn't an operator for CAG, he knew more about communications systems in general than anyone they'd met. He had also received a lot of tactical training from the teams he was attached to on operations, making him a real asset. The rest of the team was still getting to know the lanky six foot two blonde haired, blue eyed surfer from San Diego, California, but he was easy going and was very good at his job.

Nick Ryan, the team's current weapons expert and team sniper, was in the turret of the lead vehicle behind his mounted M240B medium machine gun. As a former US Army Special Forces Weapons Sergeant, Nick had spent quite a bit of time in gun turrets on convoys while he was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. He missed the heavier weaponry he would be using if he were still in the Army, but he loved working as a contractor. The job was not that much different than what he did when he was a Green Beret, but working as a contractor gave him a sense of freedom to make decisions about where he went and what he did that he would never have had in the military.

At five foot nine, Nick was the shortest guy on the team, but he was a muscular one hundred and ninety pounds and could handle himself in a fight, whether it was with guns or his fists. He came to the team with Marcos and the two had a never ending rivalry of Seals versus Special Forces. For two years they had ripped on each other non-stop, driving the rest of the team insane while they just kept on joking.

Nick watched ahead of them as the road curved around a steep hill to their left. He maneuvered the turret to keep his gun on the road ahead before the Humvee entered the curve. The land leveled out on both sides as the road straightened out on the other side of the hill. The forests that bordered the road gradually crept away from the edges of the pavement as they traveled south, leaving about two hundred meters of grassy plains to either side before the tree lines started. Like the rest of the team, he knew by now that they were only about eight miles from the turn off leading down a rough winding road through the trees to the west into their camp. They had driven to the airfield located in a military camp just south of the capital city Antrusia at least once a week for the last three weeks, picking up supplies and materials to help the militia improve their base.

Through his Peltor Comtac, an amplified hearing protection headset, Nick heard gunfire in the distance, just to the west in the woods. It sounded distant, but it was close enough to get his attention. He turned the turret to his right and keyed the push to talk box for his radio.

"I'm hearing gunfire to the west, maybe six or seven hundred meters inside the wood line," he reported.

"Shooting at us?" Thom asked, turning in his seat to scan out the window.

"Negative," Nick reported.

"Then we'll pick up speed and try to blow past it," Thom said.

They were driving under night vision, keeping their lights off to prevent enemy from seeing them coming from too far away. Without more man power, the little convoy would easily be overrun, so they were trying to use speed and stealth to safely travel through the country at night. While Andru didn't have any massed forces in the area, he sent out random, roving patrols to harass the Edonian forces and try to keep them off the roads. It's why Thom was listening for any radio traffic, trying to get early warning of enemy patrols so they could avoid them.

As Carter accelerated there was a flash of light to the west, which, through Nick's PVS-14 night vision monocular, looked like a white cloud that burst up from the tops of the trees. A split second later the loud explosion was heard by everyone and tracer rounds could be spotted arching through the air over and between the trees. The explosion echoed throughout the valley as the team kept driving. Nick noticed a trail leading from the trees towards the road ahead of them and kept his machine gun trained on the head of it at the tree line.

"Hell of a fight going on over there," Jeff commented over the radio.

"Let's get clear of this shit, mates" Thom told them all, "We don't need a fight tonight."

The Humvee bounced roughly over the worn road and Nick did his best to keep his weapon leveled at the trail. Tracer rounds were spitting out of the trees in line with the trail and he could see bright lights shining out of the woods towards the main road.

"Heads up, there's a vehicle headed our way," Nick reported.

Nick heard Thom shout a string of curses below before his voice came back over the radio, "We're pulling into the clearing on the left. Ibrahim, get that flatbed as close to the trees as you can. We'll pull up and cover south, Marcos, you pull up short and cover the north. I want the guns trained on this clusterfuck, but do not engage unless they directly engage us, clear?"

"Got it," Ibrahim answered as they slowed down to turn off the road.

"Anything you say boss," Marcos replied.

As Ibrahim positioned their vehicle, about a hundred and fifty meters away from the road, Nick watched as the headlights got brighter. Moments later an SUV bounced down the trail out of the woods, moving too fast for the driver to really control. It lurched and flew over the rough ground and fishtailed in the dirt as they fought to keep it out of the grassy plains and on the trail. Tracer rounds spat out of the woods after it and more headlights chased it down the trail. Bullets shattered the windows and chewed up the spare tire on the back hatch of the vehicle. The trailing vehicle came into view, but all the headlights washed out Nick's night vision, preventing him from identifying any of them as Urchenko's rebels or Edonian government forces in the trucks. He could make out the glow of a third vehicle's lights close behind the second truck. The telltale flash of a machine gun mounted on a pedestal over the cab was followed by the echoing report of what sounded like a PKM.

Jeff was able to identify the trailing vehicles from his angle, since he wasn't looking directly at the headlights. His voice came over the radio, calmly declaring, "The trail vehicles are technicals, two pickups with men in the beds. They've got mounted PKMs and I can make out at least one RPG gunner in the bed of the second truck. They look like Andru's assholes."

"Hold your fire until we can positively identify the threat," Thom ordered.

Just then, the SUV was hit with a long burst of machine gun fire and the driver gunned the engine. The small truck lurched forward, bouncing wildly over a few bumps before it hit the ditch at the side of the main road. It struck the embankment and all four tires left the ground. The heavy front end came down crooked and the SUV flipped, rolling across the road. It looked like a civilian truck, one of the local pieces of shit that always clogged the main road during the day.

"They're shooting up the locals!" Nick shouted.

He took aim at the first technical and let loose with a long burst that struck the engine block first and worked its way back along the rest of the truck as it continued forward. He heard Thom yelling curses at him as he and Carter dismounted through the driver's door. Jeff followed Nick's burst with a controlled burst on the last truck. The men in the pickups, without the aid of night vision, fired wildly in their general direction at the flashes from their M240Bs. The rolling SUV came to a stop in the field in front of their lead Humvee, resting on its roof. As he fired another long burst at the first pickup Nick saw Thom and Carter out of the corner of his eye as they sprinted across the grassy field to the rolled civilian vehicle.

Rounds were pinging and ricocheting off of the shield around his turret and he could feel the snap of the rounds as they passed by overhead and around him. He fired his third long burst at the truck, aimed directly at the gunner, and watched him fall back over the tailgate of the truck after taking several rounds to his torso. The pickup had rolled to a stop in the middle of the field and forced the driver of the last truck to slam on his brakes. Smoke was pouring out of the engine of the first truck and the glow of flames licking around the edges of the hood was brightly visible through Nick's night vision. He kept pouring rounds into the truck and the men scattering over the sides of the bed, scrambling for cover in the open field.

Jeff continued to fire bursts at the remaining truck when it was hit with a forty millimeter grenade, fired by Marcos out of the M79 grenade launcher he carried. It was an older weapon, but a classic, firing High Explosive grenades with a kill radius of about five meters. Marcos was more than good enough with it to lob the round into the bed of the truck, where it detonated amongst the guerilla forces' ammo, rockets, and extra fuel. The secondary explosions of everything in the back of the truck ripped the bed right off and flipped it over in the air. The frame of the truck bent down and the cab fell back against the overturned rear of the vehicle. Spilled fuel covered the ground below and around the wreckage and the entire thing went up in flames instantly, blazing in the team's night vision, whiting them out.

Nick flipped the PVS-14 up on his Modular Integrated Communications Helmet to try to encourage his eyes to both adjust to the darkness after the flash. The MICH was a kevlar helmet that was designed for use with headsets like the Peltor and was the same as the standard issue worn by U.S. Armed Forces. Thom came over the radio, "Lift fire! Marcos, Ibrahim, get over here and we'll clear the trucks from the north side."

As they moved up, Nick pulled the remaining ammo from the can in the gun mount and immediately loaded a fresh can of two hundred rounds. He linked the remainder of the belt to the end of the full can and watched as Thom, Carter, Ibrahim, and Marcos quickly approached the destroyed vehicles. They moved quickly and deliberately, putting a controlled pair of rounds into each enemy fighter, just to confirm that they were all dead before they started a hasty search. They kept a safe distance away from the flaming wreckage that Marcos had hit with his High Explosive Dual Purpose grenade as they checked the men for identification or anything else of use to them.

Nick finished with the ammo and climbed down into the driver's seat, radioing, "I'm pulling the truck up to cover the road to the south."

"Stay close," Thom replied, "We need to get the fuck out of here quick."

Nick parked the truck about fifty meters past the rolled SUV and climbed back into the turret, flipping his night vision back down as he watched the road to the south. The rest of the team finished going over the bodies as he scanned for any movement in the fields or among the trees. He was full of adrenaline from the fire fight and his heightened senses made him over-attentive to even the slightest movement of tree branches and grass.

Carter came over the radio, "Definitely Urchenko's men, I found a few of those spider patches on some of these guys."

He was referring to an emblem that the Urchenko brothers had adopted as their symbol, which was just a black spider, outlined in gold on a red shield. It may have had some kind of historic meaning to the region but Nick hadn't really paid much attention to it, he just knew to look for it. To him, it looked like something a thirteen year old would wear to try to look tough.

He heard his teammates opening the doors of the Humvee and he glanced down, surprised to see them guiding a woman to the vehicle. Her long hair was covering her face and it looked like the left side of her jacket was covered in blood. She appeared shaken and unsteady as Thom half-carried her to the door. On her right thigh was an empty drop leg holster and she was carrying a backpack in her free right hand while her left arm was around Thom's huge shoulders.

"Who the hell is she?" Nick asked as he turned back to keep watch on the road.

"There'll be time to find out later," Thom shouted as he sat her inside and slammed the door, "Right now we need to –"

He was cut off by Jeff's voice over the radio, "Vehicles to the rear, coming up fast."

There was a pause before they heard him shouting, "RPG!"


	3. Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Edonian Royal Trade Highway

13 Miles south of the capital, Antrusia

12:55 am September 19th, 2010

They all heard the distinctive sound of a rocket propelled grenade as they looked to the north. Nick turned just in time to see the round slam into the front passenger door of the Humvee Jeff was in. The explosion destroyed the ballistic glass windows and debris flew up out of the turret. The left rear door was blown open and the inside of the truck was filled with smoke and bits of whatever had been inside. Through his NVG's it appeared as a giant splash of white light, replaced by darkness as the filters in the goggle tried to adjust to the sudden brightness.

The booming sound of another RPG being launched drew their attention again. This time they were all able to see it fly from the hilltop they'd driven around, a hundred meters to the north, and strike the rear half of the Humvee. It ignited the fuel tank and a flaming explosion rocketed into the night sky. The flash blinded the team once again and they all flipped up their NVG's, cursing as they organized to move on this new threat.

In seconds, Ibrahim was at the wheel of the lead Humvee, with Carter in the passenger seat while Thom and Marcos sprinted for the woods to the east, intending to move north through the cover of the forest and get around to flank the gunners on the hilltop. They moved with speed and determination under the assumption that Jeff was still alive and about to face the enemy alone.

Ibrahim gunned the truck, spinning the wheel to bring it around to the north as quickly as he could. Nick struggled with the turret to keep his machine gun aimed at the hill where the RPGs had been launched and opened up with a wide burst. His rounds sprayed the hillside and he kept his rate of fire high, shooting short bursts every second or so to pin the attackers down and prevent them from firing again. Headlights from two more pickup trucks came around the hill moving fast. The gunner of the lead pickup saw the flash of Nick's machine gun and returned fire.

Rounds slammed into the hood of their Humvee and blew out one of the headlights, then traveled up, pocking the windshield and pinging off of the turret right in front of Nick. The radiator must have taken a few rounds because steam began blowing out of the vents on the hood. As the rounds continued coming Nick swung the turret and fired a long burst between the headlights of the lead truck. It swerved and then jerked to the left, bouncing off the road, through the ditch and stopped in the field.

Another RPG flew from the hilltop right at their Humvee. Ibrahim cut the wheel left, sharply and Nick felt the _whoosh_ of the rocket as it sailed past their right side. He could hear the woman in the seat below screaming as it passed and struck the back end of the flatbed truck, loaded with supplies. The rear axle of the heavy truck snapped and the tires flew off of it as the truck lurched forward then settled with the rear bumper in the muddy field. Some of the cargo strapped down came loose and fell off the sides or slid off the back end of the truck.

Nick swung back to the hilltop and fired a burst at it through the flames of the destroyed Humvee as they got closer to it. He swung back to engage the second pickup, still on the road, which started shooting as soon as they got past the pickup in the field. Nick held down the trigger and wrestled the weapon, trying to keep his burst on target as their rounds hit the Humvee, blowing out the driver's side front tire. Nick's rounds caused the hood of the pickup to fly open as something inside exploded and blew out both of their front tires, first the right, then the left.

Ibrahim stopped the Humvee about ten meters behind the rear of Jeff's burning truck and he and Carter got out, firing at the hilltop. Nick kept firing at the handful of men climbing out of the two pickups, killing two near the first truck in the field before the others dove for cover behind the trucks, wildly firing over the top and around the sides. When the M240B went dry Nick threw the can and reached for a fresh one when he heard Carter yell.

"RPG!"

Nick saw it flying right at the parked Humvee and he dropped down, trying to cover the woman still sitting in the back seat with his body as the rocket slammed into the front of the vehicle. The explosion rocked the truck and, in spite of the hearing protection he wore, Nick was temporarily deafened, left with only an annoying high pitched ringing. The concussion and overpressure from the close impact and explosion felt like a punch in the chest, but the ballistic glass of the windshield and the armor plated firewall of the passenger compartment prevented shrapnel from flying in. As he took a few breaths, waiting for the pain of any injuries to materialize, he checked on the woman who was holding her hands over her ears, but appeared otherwise unharmed.

He tried to tell the woman that she was okay, but his own voice sounded like it was coming from far away. It slowly improved as he got his senses back and realized that someone outside of the vehicle was yelling. He crawled to the driver's side door as more rifle rounds impacted the windshield and turret, sounding like someone was banging a metal pot over his head.

He opened the door, stepped out, and saw Carter furiously working to put a tourniquet on Ibrahim's leg. The Israeli was writhing in pain and was covered in blood from shrapnel wounds, some of which were still smoking. He must have been close to the Humvee when it was hit with the RPG. As Nick was about to reach in and grab one of the Trauma Bags from inside the truck a burst of rounds hit the door he was next to. He dove in the truck and looked through the window at the gunner in the disabled truck on the road just as it was hit with a 40mm grenade.

The men still in the truck were thrown off the sides in the explosion, some in several pieces. A second grenade, lobbed from the M203 grenade launcher mounted under the barrel of Thom's M4, hit the truck in the field, destroying it completely in a fiery explosion. Nick took the opportunity to grab the trauma bag and dashed out next to Carter, ripping open the zippers and trying desperately to remember where everything was located in the bag.

"Call Marcos!" Carter yelled over the explosions of another pair of grenades as they struck the two trucks.

Nick keyed his radio, "Marcos, Ibrahim's hit! You need to get over here!"

"Roger," Marcos replied as Carter finished tying off the tourniquet.

"We've still got the RPG gunners on the hill," Thom said.

Nick looked at Carter and said, "We need to move him behind the truck before they fire more rockets."

Carter nodded and they got ready to move him when the woman crouched next to them and asked, "How can I help?"

"Grab the bag," Carter told her as he slid his arms under Ibrahim's.

Nick looked at the wounded man before he wrapped his arms around his mangled legs, saying, "Sorry bud, this is gonna hurt."

As Nick and Marcos picked him up Ibrahim gritted his teeth and growled through them, his arms and torso tensed and trembled in response to the incredible pain. They moved as quickly as they could about ten meters behind the Humvee before gently laying him back down. They heard another RPG launch and then a second immediately after that. Both of them knelt over Ibrahim as the first round struck near the trees and then the second closer to them, in the field. Mud and grass rained down on them as Marcos came sliding over like he was stealing second base, reaching for the trauma bag before he'd even stopped moving.

"Don't worry Heeb," Marcos said, using his nickname, "I'm here man. Just stay with me."

Marcos went to work as Thom came over the radio, "They've got my position, boys, I'm pinned down here. I could use some help."

Nick jumped up and moved to the rear hatch of the Humvee, opening it just enough to pull out his M24 Sniper Weapon System and his go bag. He opened the bag and grabbed his PVS 22 Universal Night Sight, which was designed to work with magnified optics like his ten power Leupold Mark IV Long Range/Tactical sniper scope. Though the UNS wasn't the best thing out there, at two hundred meters it would definitely do the job. He attached it to the extended rail on his rifle and turned it on; looking through the scope to make sure it worked. Satisfied, he unlocked and opened the bolt action before he opened the zippered pouch on the buttstock of the rifle and loaded the five .308 caliber Hollow Point Boat Tail rounds inside into the internal magazine of the weapon. He closed the pouch and slid the bolt forward, then pushed the knob down, locking the first round in the chamber.

He crawled to the right side of the Humvee and laid down in the prone, taking off his MICH and staying in the shadow of the vehicle cast by the flames from the burning Humvee. He scanned the hilltop and located the two RPG gunners lying on the crest of the hill, watching the wood line. They had rounds in the tubes and only their head and shoulders were visible over the hill.

Nick tried to position himself so that he could only see the man on the right, using the truck to block himself from the other gunner's view. He put his scope's mil-dot crosshair reticle on the man's forehead, holding half of a mil low from his one hundred meter zero. He calmed his breathing down and settled his point of aim on the RPG gunner. Nick was in his element, at his best when he was on the glass of his sniper rifle, looking at the face of a man who didn't even know he was there. When he was on his long gun, he controlled the field, he had the advantage and he was very good at exploiting it for his and his teammate's benefit.

He exhaled and held it for a split second as he smoothly pressed the trigger to the rear, feeling the round break clean with his point of aim centered between the man's eyebrows. The rifle kicked as his round was fired and the magnified image jerked up just slightly. Nick racked the bolt action, ejecting the spent casing and loading the next, as he brought his sight back on target. The gunner's face was in the dirt with a fist sized hole in the back of his head, arms limp, RPG tube sliding down the hill a few feet before it settled below him, waiting for the trail of his blood to slowly make its way down to meet it.

Nick crept forward slowly to aim at the remaining man on the hilltop. The other gunner was staring at the unmoving body next to him in confusion. He'd heard the round fired, even felt it strike the man near him, but never saw where the shot came from. He was staring at the field, searching for any movement, too terrified to move and draw attention to himself. His eyes scanned from the tree line to the road, seeing nothing at all except for the flames and smoke when Nick fired his second round. He saw the flash and then an instant later the round struck him in the face, killing him.

Nick spent a few moments watching for any movement, but the two gunners were dead, so he got on the radio, saying, "Two dead on the hilltop, I'll cover the trucks as you move boss."

He grabbed his MICH and moved between the two blown up Humvees, crawling out slowly to cover the burning pickups for any enemy survivors that might still be thinking of taking pot shots at their team while Thom ran out of the woods to the back of the Humvee where the others were. Out of breath from his mad dash, he knelt down next to Marcos. "How is he?" he asked between breaths.

Marcos paused before he answered, "I'm sorry boss; he's gone."


	4. Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

Edonian Royal Trade Highway

13 Miles south of the capital, Antrusia

1:04 am September 19th, 2010

Thom was swearing over and over again as he stood up and kicked the rear bumper of the Humvee, rocking the heavy vehicle forward slightly. He paced around, furious, for a few minutes as Carter threw his blood soaked gloves to the ground and grabbed a bottle of water to wash off his hands. He was blinking back forming tears as he rinsed his friend's blood from his hands and wrists. Marcos was solemnly repacking the scattered contents of the trauma bag, hanging his head in remorse at not being able to save their brother. The woman was just sitting there, staring at Ibrahim.

"Any sign of Jeff?" Thom asked, finally.

Marcos and Carter both took a deep breath and Carter said, "We'll go check."

As they got up to go look around the blown up Humvee, Thom stood and glared at the woman who was fixated on the lifeless body in front of her. He wanted to blame her for this, but he had seen the inside of the SUV when they pulled her out. The driver had been shot, multiple times, before he crashed their vehicle. His blood was all over her and Thom knew that she was in at least as bad of a state as they were.

Nick got up as Marcos and Carter moved around the burning Humvee, keeping his eyes on the area around the destroyed pickup trucks. Neither of the men searching saw what looked like a burning six foot one, hundred and eighty pound body inside or around the Humvee at all, so they spread out to look for any sign that he might have crawled off. They hoped he'd jumped out and run for cover, but the nearest cover was the trees and he would have seen them all after the fire fight. They tried to raise him on the radio, but there was no answer. It was as if he had just vanished into thin air.

Thom heard their radio calls and came over the net, asking, "What's up boys?"

They walked back to the rear of the Humvee and Carter said, "There's no trace of him. No body. Nothing."

Just then, Nick faintly heard a distinctive low rumble, accompanied by a slight vibration he felt through his feet. He got a sick feeling in his gut as he realized they were about to be joined by something very heavy, very soon. He moved to join the rest of the team as Thom was looking at Carter and Marcos with a puzzled expression.

"The hell do you mean _nothing_?" He demanded.

Before they could answer, Nick interjected, "We need to bug out now! We're about to have more company than we can handle."

They stood in silence, listening for a moment before they picked up on the rumbling and vibrations. Thom shook his head, swearing again.

"Get the stretcher and whatever else we can carry out of the truck and let's move," he ordered, "We'll get into the wood line with Ibrahim, but we're going to have to cache him somewhere if we want to move fast enough to get clear of all this shit."

Marcos nodded and shouldered the aid bag, then slung his grenade launcher and MP5A2 sub machine gun and helped Carter unfold and lock open the folding litter. Nick pulled Thom's, Ibrahim's, and his own bug out bags from the truck. They were packed with some food, water, ammo, and basic survival gear for use in emergencies. Thom and Nick each shouldered their bags and Nick gave Ibrahim's to Carter, who shrugged it on silently. Nick also pulled out a Mossberg 500 pump action shotgun, slinging it on his back over the bag, and put his helmet back on.

Thom stood before the woman who was standing quietly by, waiting, and said, "You're coming with us. Keep up and stay quiet until I tell you otherwise, understand?"

She nodded and shouldered her own bag, asking, "Can I at least have my pistol back?"

"Absolutely not," Thom said then turned to help lay Ibrahim on the stretcher.

Nick flipped his PVS-14 monocular device back down and took point going into the woods with Carter and Marcos carrying the stretcher behind him. The dark haired woman followed them and Thom stayed hidden in the trees near the field, covering them as they moved. If they were spotted he'd buy them some time to get away. He watched as an old World War Two era half track vehicle came around the bend next to the hill. It looked like a Russian made beast that was marked with the spider emblem of the Urchenko's insurgent forces. The front half was basically an armored semi truck cab while the back half ran on tracks with an armor plated troop compartment and a machine gun mounted in a half turret at the front. Thom knew that he had nothing that would even slow down the heavily armored vehicle, so he just stayed hidden and watched.

A cargo truck followed behind the half track as it pulled up next to the destroyed trucks and stopped. When dozens of guerilla forces began jumping out of the back of the truck and pouring out of the half track armed with AK-47s and RPGs, Thom slowly crept back into the woods. He carefully pulled back out of sight of the men as they fanned out and searched through the wreckage of all the vehicles. When he was safely out of sight he got up and took off to join up with his team.

He caught up to them in just a few minutes and urged them to move as quickly as they could through the forest. He pushed them for about five hundred meters, to the base of a ridgeline where they stopped so Nick and Thom could take the stretcher from Marcos and Carter. The hillside slowed them down as Nick and Thom struggled to climb up the slope while carrying the body. Once they crested the ridge they fought to make their way down the other side without dropping Ibrahim off of the stretcher. As soon as they were at the foot of the hillside they switched back out and Marcos and Carter moved to make up lost time.

A few hundred meters past the ridge Thom stopped them and called them in, saying, "We'll cache the body here. Nick, get back up on the ridgeline and keep watch for any trouble following us."

"Got it," Nick replied as he finished drinking a bottle of water.

He carefully climbed back up the hill and selected a good, concealed position that had a pretty good view through the trees below. He scanned with his night vision, looking for any movement before he got on the scope, turning on the PVS 22. He scanned through the trees slowly, but saw nothing. Satisfied, he took off his MICH, worked the slung shotgun off his back, and dropped his go bag, all in a small pile next to his position.

He got on the radio, "I'm in place. There's no movement, so you've got some time."

Marcos had started digging while Carter went to gather vegetation to use as concealment. Thom went through Ibrahim's kit, taking his FNP90 submachinegun and FiveseveN pistol along with their magazines and his radio. He also grabbed Ibrahim's wallet and any other odds and ends he was carrying in his pockets that they didn't want to leave for the guerillas to possibly find. He packed the things in his bug out bag and walked over to the woman who was sitting nearby.

"Now you get to talk," he told her.

She sighed and began, "My name is Karina Lavorya and I work for the B.S.A.A. Eastern European branch. My partner's name was Levi Marko…"

Tears began to well in her eyes as she reached her hand up to touch the blood covering the sleeve of her jacket still.

Thom waited a few seconds and said, "And the B.S.A.A. is …"

She took a deep breath and continued, "The Bio-terror Security Assessment Alliance, an international organization that tracks down the illegal production, sale, and use of biological weapons.

"We were following a lead from Warsaw that a former Umbrella Corporation researcher was smuggling in a weapon developed for Andru Urchenko."

"The guerillas wanted a bio-weapon? What exactly was it?" Thom asked.

"It's a very dangerous virus that combines elements of two different variants with some genetically engineered controls. Levi and I tracked down the smuggler after he'd entered Edonia and managed to follow him to the meet, where he was to deliver the weapon. We couldn't stop it, but Levi managed to get this."

She pulled a small metallic case from her backpack and set it on her lap. She opened the latches and lifted the lid carefully, holding it out so Thom could take a look. He shined a red lens flashlight on the contents, revealing three glass vials with what looked like helical tubes inside filled with a viscous fluid.

"So, what exactly does that shit do?" he asked.

She shut the lid and latched it, saying, "We've only had a chance to briefly go over some documents we found in his lab in Warsaw, but from what I've already read it seems to be a variation of a virus that can reanimate dead cells. It's been modified to work with a parasitic organism which bonds with the host, giving another some kind of control over it. There are different strains of the parasite, some dominate the host completely while others allow the host to communicate and control those that were dominated."

"You're going to have to break that down a little bit more for me," Thom said, "You're saying it's some kind of mind control _virus_?"

"I'll know more when I get a chance to study the documents we took, but, basically, yes. I believe Urchenko intend to use it to turn the population into his undead soldiers."

"Like, zombies?" he said in disbelief.

"Yes," she calmly told him, "There were four trucks at the meet and three of these cases. We only got one of them before we were spotted and had to run. We tried to destroy the others, but I don't think we were successful.

"If it weren't for you and your men, I'd be dead also. I am truly sorry that you lost him," she said, gesturing to Ibrahim.

He nodded solemnly and said, "So am I. We've got another man missing, too."

She lowered her eyes and shook her head, saying, "I don't know what to say, except that this weapon is not just a threat to Edonia. If it spreads like previous versions of the virus, then the entire planet is at stake."

Thom reached into his bag and fished around, finally pulling out the Beretta he had taken from her holster when he pulled her out of the SUV, as well as the magazine that had been in it. He held them out to her.

"I guess you should take this back," he said, "I'd better be able to trust you with that."

She slid the magazine in the grip and racked the slide to chamber a round before she holstered it, saying, "You won't need to worry about me."

He nodded and extended his hand, "Name's Thom."

She stood and shook his massive hand.

"Thank you."

Carter returned with an armload of branches, brush, leaves and hunks of moss as Marcos was finishing with the makeshift grave. It was almost two feet deep and long enough for Ibrahim's body to fit easily. Thom pulled a Mylar emergency blanket out of the survival gear in his bug out bag and lined the hole with it so they could cover the body, keeping it somewhat protected from scavenging wildlife and the elements.

Nick was lying on the crest of the ridgeline, shivering. The sweat he'd worked up during the movement, carrying the stretcher up and down the hill and then climbing right back up it, left him with a wet shirt on a cool autumn night. In spite of lying on the cold earth in the middle of the night with sweat soaked clothes, he continued to pull security diligently for his teammates. He knew that it was vital to their survival at this point to see the enemy before the enemy saw them.

When he caught movement through the trees with his NVGs he prepared his rifle, turning on the PVS 22 and flipping open the lens covers. He turned off his goggles and flipped them up before he took off the helmet and set it next to his bug out bag beside him. He looked through the scope and spotted three men, dressed in various piecemeal military gear, carrying AK-47s. They were moving slowly, trying not to make any noise as they advanced through the darkness of the forest.

Nick keyed his radio and cupped his hand in front of the mic, whispering, "Hit the mute button fellas, we've got company."

Everyone stopped what they were doing and Thom held up his hand to signal to Karina before he got on comms and said, "How far out?"

"Three hundred meters from the base of the hill, moving towards it." Nick replied.

"Are they tracking us?" Thom asked.

Nick watched them for a few more moments before answering, "Doesn't look like it, they don't have any night vision, but they're moving closer to our trail."

The team had been moving quickly through the forest with the added burden of hauling a body. The trail they left would be easy to find, especially on the uphill side of the ridge, where Nick and Thom were constantly slipping on the fallen leaves and loose dirt as they struggled to make the climb with the stretcher. Once they had hidden the body they'd be able to spread out and move with much more care not to leave any trail to follow. For now, they were forced to endure waiting out the threat.

"Keep us posted mate," Thom instructed over the radio, "We're going to try and finish this up quietly."

"You got it," Nick said.

Thom looked at Marcos and Carter and whispered, "Alright boys, let's lay him to rest."

The whispered words weighed heavily on the two men, one his best friend and the other the medic who was supposed to keep them all alive. They both felt a personal responsibility to their fallen brother to see that his body was not dishonored or lost in foreign soil. The three men silently moved to pick him up off of the stretcher, lifting him carefully and gently laying him on the Mylar blanket in the shallow hole. Each of them said a silent farewell to Ibrahim before folding the blanket around him, tucking the edges in underneath him to try to create the best possible seal. They then began scooping the cold earth back into the hole, covering the shiny material of the blanket and burying their friend.

Nick came over the radio, "They've got our trail at the base of the hill. I'm going to take these guys."

"Do it," Thom answered coldly, feeling like there would be some kind of retribution in killing more guerillas, "We're almost done here."

Nick shifted slightly and took aim at the only one of the three men carrying a radio. He was only about a hundred and fifty meters from them, if that, and could hear their voices whispering as they conferred about finding the trail. When the guerilla grabbed the Icom-style radio off of his belt, about to transmit the news, Nick broke his shot, striking the rebel in the center of his chest. He dropped the Icom and fell back at the base of a tree; his body tensed and shook for a second before it went limp as he exhaled his last breath.

The other two scrambled for cover behind nearby trees as Nick racked the bolt action quickly. The guerillas were talking loudly over each other, panicky and uncertain. While Nick didn't know much Romanian, he assumed they were trying to figure out between them what they should do next. They each poked their heads out around the sides of the trees they were using for cover, but Nick waited patiently for a better shot. They had no idea where he was exactly, just that the shot came from over the hill, and Nick knew that if he waited, they would get impatient and do something stupid.

A few moments later the opportunity for another easy shot presented itself when the man to the right of their dead comrade crawled out to reach for the radio, exposing his head and half of his body. Nick calmly fired his second shot and watched it strike the guerilla fighter just behind his jaw, below his ear. He laid out flat, eyes bulging and muscles contracting for a few seconds before he too went limp and lifeless.

Nick pulled the bolt action back, ejecting the spent brass, and left it open. There was one round still in the internal magazine and he began pulling the five rounds in elastic loops on the outside of his butt stock pouch and loading them in the mag. The last round he fed into the chamber, then held down the rounds in the magazine and rode the bolt over top of them, giving him one in the chamber and five in the mag as he locked the action closed by rotating the handle down.

The last guerilla was hyperventilating behind his tree, too terrified to move for fear of getting shot in the night. Nick crept back, just behind the crest of the hill, and moved north alongside it, slowly and silently. After twenty or thirty meters he crawled back up on the ridge. He had a partial view of the man, sitting with his back pressed against the trunk of the tree. He was still out of his mind with fear, trying to remain silent and motionless. Nick lined up his shot and pressed the trigger, satisfied as the round hit him just behind his right eye, in the temple. He slumped over completely still.

"There'll probably be more very soon, they had to have heard the shots," Nick said over the radio, "but we're clear for now."

"Good work," Thom replied, "We're done here, why don't you join us and we'll pick up and keep moving."

"Got it," Nick said.


	5. Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

Edonian countryside

13 Miles south of the capital, Antrusia

2:12 am September 19th, 2010

Nick carefully moved across the ridge to his equipment and put everything back on before he made his way back down the hill to the rest of the team. When he met up with them they were huddled around Thom's map, plotting their route. Nick's eyes were drawn to the mound of earth, well hidden under vegetation, moss, and deadfall with the folded litter next to it. Marcos patted him on the shoulder as he joined the huddle.

Thom looked up from the map and said, "Good, it's time for a quick introduction. Guys, this is Karina. This is my team, Carter, Marcos, and Nick."

She looked at each of them and nodded in turn. Even in the dark of night Nick noticed that she had piercing blue eyes and was a strikingly beautiful woman. Her black hair was now pulled back into a pony-tail, leaving just a couple of lengthy locks framing her slightly dirty pale face. If he were into goth-vampire chicks this would have been his dream girl. He kind of lost his concentration as he stared at her, losing what Thom had just said.

"…into the 'why' later, just know that we're doing this for a very good fuckin' reason. We should be able to get there by dawn and then we can hash out what comes next. Clear?"

"Sure thing boss," Marcos said.

"Yeah," said Carter.

Even though he didn't really understand what they were doing, Nick just said, "Got it."

"Good," Thom said, folding the map and stuffing it in his cargo pocket, "We'll move out in a wedge. I'll take point. Karina, stay close to me."

She just nodded and glanced over at Nick, who was still staring at her. He started awkwardly fiddling with his rifle and turned to find his place in their formation. They all flipped their night vision down and turned them on, spreading out to keep from trampling a clear trail through the woods. Nick kept the scope covers of his rifle closed and the UNS turned off with the spent brass from his last shot still in the chamber. It was the safest way to carry the rifle.

Thom led the way, navigating with a wrist mounted Garmin Foretrex 401 GPS device. The men continuously scanned their surroundings for movement as they carefully moved through the underbrush and around the trees. They did their best to avoid walking over the dried up fallen leaves, which made a lot of noise in the still quiet of the night. They also took care not to step in soft mud, whenever they could help it, in order to keep from leaving an obvious sign of passage. They stepped slowly and made sure they didn't brush past branches, causing them to swing around after they passed. Even moving as deliberately and cautiously as they were, the team still made good time through the forest.

Thom halted them around every five hundred meters or so and each time they would all take a knee to just watch the woods and listen for anything that sounded out of place. Rustling leaves, branches moving, sticks breaking or any kind of metallic noise at all could signal them that an enemy was in the area. After a minute or two they would pick back up and move again, following Thom's lead.

Their night vision gave them a great advantage over the guerilla forces and allowed them to move quickly and confidently at night. By the time the sky began to brighten, signaling the coming sunrise, they were within sight of the village they were moving to, on the other side of half a mile of open farmland. Thom halted the team and called them together in a creek bed, just out of sight of the town's stone walls. They packed their night vision inside of their bags and clipped their helmets to the outsides of them.

Nick was shaking out his hair and scratching his head when Thom told him, "Go see what you can see in the town. Let me know if there are soldiers of any kind, guerilla or government."

"Okay," Nick said, climbing up out of the creek bed and finding a good spot to over watch from once again.

"Alright Karina," Thom began, "what now? Do we just walk up the road and in the gate?"

"May I see your map?" she asked.

He pulled it out and unfolded it, laying it on the ground as she spoke.

"Trapov is bordered on the south and east by the Cusesca Moutain range. The village extends for a ways into the foothills and is surrounded on three sides by a high stone wall. The gates are watched by locals, part of the village magistrate's guards. According to our liason who arranged the safe house for us, the Urchenkos are forcing them to supply weapons, ammunition, food, and lodging in exchange for safety. Many villages in the region have been razed and destroyed, the people slaughtered by the warlord's forces, so now they pay tribune and allow Urchenko to always keep some of his men around to act as his eyes and ears, so we should avoid the gates.

"The eastern side faces a cliff that overlooks the river," she said, pointing to it on the map, "There is a trail through the woods here that leads to a ledge along the cliff face. From there we can access a system of tunnels below the village and get in safely."

"We're going in the sewer?" Marcos asked.

"It's just the storm drainage system and it's the only way in without being seen," she told him.

"Fuck it, why not?" Carter said.

Thom keyed his radio, "How's it look, any trouble?"

"I got nothin'," Nick answered.

"Good," Thom said, "get back here; Karina's going to lead us in."

When Nick rejoined the group they followed her to the east, near the cliff overlooking the river. After a few minutes of back tracking to the north she found the path leading down to the ledge. It cut through the woods near a stream that emptied down into the river. There were only a few meters of rocky clearing between the trees and the edge of the cliff with the trail running alongside it before it disappeared over the edge.

Karina went first, followed by Thom, Marcos, Carter and Nick bringing up the rear of their file formation, which meant they were walking in a line, one after the other. They carried their bags in their free hand to keep their body weight closer to the side of the cliff as they stepped carefully along the ledge. It led them down about ten meters below the lip of the cliff face above and was wide enough to walk comfortably in most places. There were a few tight spots where it only stuck out about a foot from the rock wall and they very slowly inched along past those.

Looking down as they went, they all saw the swiftly moving stream of icy mountain runoff churning over jagged rocks thirty or forty meters below them. The height gave them all a slight sense of vertigo, even though most of the group had plenty of experience jumping out of airplanes or rappelling from rooftops or helicopters. This was different because of the lack of any kind of safety to prevent them from falling if they slipped. At one point, Marcos began to lose his balance passing over a narrow spot on the ledge and was tipping forward, away from the rock. Carter threw his arm out, slapping Marcos's chest and pushing him back against the cliff.

"Jesus Christ," Marcos said, breathing deeply as his adrenaline sped up his heart rate, "Thanks bro."  
Carter chuckled and said, "I'll bet you'll take that back once we're ankle deep in medieval sewage."

"Shit, I'd almost forgotten about that," Marcos groaned.

They inched along until the ledge rose up slightly and Karina reached the tunnel entrance that dumped the small village's waste water down into the river. The ledge was about two feet wide at that point and a spout had been carved out of the rock of the ledge to direct the flow. The tunnel itself was made out of old brick and masonry and was only about three feet in diameter.

Karina pulled out a flashlight and was about to enter when Thom put his hand on her shoulder and whispered, "Why don't you let me go first?"

"That's not necessary," she said sharply before crouching down and disappearing into the rank tunnel.

Thom had to get down on his hands and knees to fit into the opening. He struggled to crawl forward, dragging his bag along beneath him and keeping his M4A1 Carbine in his hand as he slid inside. While rainwater and wastewater flushed out of the tunnels before fairly well, there were stagnant pools of waste and residue along the floor and walls of the tunnel, and the smell was overpowering. Thom felt himself constantly on the verge of throwing up, but managed to hold it down as he crawled along, following Karina through the small tunnel.

Marcos knelt down to follow Thom, pushing the aid bag in front of him as he went to enter the tunnel. As he ducked his head inside he got a nostril full of the stench and he flinched, jerking his head out reflexively. Carter was laughing softly beside him.

" _Chinga tu madre_ ," Marcos whispered, "You were right, you should have let me fall."

He tried not to breathe through his nose as he moved into the tunnel on all fours with his weapons slung across his back. He too was constantly fighting the urge to vomit while he moved. Carter and Nick eventually got inside, off the perilous ledge, and the team followed the B.S.A.A. agent as she navigated the system of tunnels below the village. Several passages branched off under various buildings and shafts of morning light shined in from storm drains along the streets. They crawled for nearly half an hour before Karina made her way up into a small alcove to the side of the main tunnel and almost a foot above the damp floor. She stood up and began climbing iron rungs built into the side up of the brick alcove, leading to a closed wooden hatch.

Thom moved in after her as she opened the hatch and climbed out of the tunnel, disappearing inside a dark room. She turned and held her hand down for Thom's gear and weapon so he could climb out after her. He looked around the tiny storage room with crates, drums, and sacks piled along the walls. The air was cold and damp, but the overwhelming stench was still there, mainly because it was soaked into his clothing and gear.

Karina handed him his things as he stretched his back and said, "We're in the basement of the local church. The priest is a good man who has long provided sanctuary for many agents over the years, as long as they had a purpose that benefits Edonia and its people. He provided us with a safe room where we stored some of our gear. I can use our satellite communications setup to get word to my superiors about what has happened."

"Good enough," Thom said as grabbed Marcos's aid bag and helped him up out of the tunnel.

When they were all out of the sewers they closed the hatch and moved a crate and some sacks of rice on top of it. Karina opened the door and stepped into a short, dark hallway that led past a door on the left to a flight of stairs, presumably up into the church. There was another door directly across from the room they were in and another at the end of the hall to the right, where Karina headed. She opened the wooden door, flipped on the yellowish light fixture on the ceiling, and gestured for them to enter the washroom.

The walls were lined with tile up to about shoulder height and the floor dipped down to a single drain in the center of the room. There was a shower head with a curtain around it on the left wall, a long set of shelves along the far wall with towels and cleaning products, and two large wash basins on the right side of the room. The fixtures and pipes that lined the walls were old, rusted, and coated with lime and calcium stains. Everything looked old and worn out and the smell of mildew and mold fought through the soaps and disinfectants that were used to clean it.

Karina took off her jacket and set it near one of the wash basins, saying, "You can get cleaned up here while I go and find Father Mikhail. He should have some clean clothes for you to wear, since you will want to wash yours."

She wrinkled her nose as she looked at them, covered in filth and reeking of the stagnant sewers still as Thom said, "Thanks."

She just nodded once and left, closing the door behind her. The men wasted no time stripping down and taking turns showering in the lukewarm water. When they weren't showering, they were at the basins trying to wash the stench out of their clothes and gear, using soap and detergent from off of the shelves. They scrubbed and rinsed over and over again, both their bodies and their equipment. The smell was starting to wash away, returning back to the sewers.

When they were finishing up, there was a knock at the door. Thom did a quick check to make sure they were all wearing a towel around their waists before he called out the okay to enter. The door opened and a very tall, middle-aged man with dark hair and a short beard entered, carrying an arm-full of clothing.

"Good morning gentlemen," he began. His voice was deep and clear but his accent was so thick it was almost unclear what he was saying, like they were talking to Bela Legosi himself, "I am Father Mikhail Sokov. You are welcome to stay here as guests. Karina has asked for these dry clothings for you."

He handed the clothes to Thom who handed the pile to Nick to distribute while he turned to talk to the priest, "Father, thank you for this. It's been a rough night for us."

The priest replied slowly and deliberately, obviously trying to remember the English he'd learned but almost never used, "It is with the spirit of God to welcome you. You may hang your clothes near to furnace and… be comfortable in next room."

"Thanks again," Thom said as the priest smiled and bowed out of the room.

When he shut the door the men looked over the garments and slippers that he had brought. They looked like simple, woven peasant garbs, a long tunic and baggy trousers, made of wool. They were no variety of colors, just brown and faded brown, but there was one set that was large enough to fit Thom. When they were dressed they commented on looking like P.O.W.s in some Vietnamese camp, right down to the handmade flip flops.

They gathered their wet belongings and walked down the hall to the open section of the basement, just to the right of the stairs, where a large wood burning stove sat across from a giant stack of split wood. There were lines hung across the room where they hung their clothing and gear, laying out what didn't fit alongside their boots near the front of the stove. They tossed a couple more pieces of wood into the stove and warmed themselves for a few minutes before Thom went to check out the room across from the storage room where they'd entered.

It was a small empty room with a single light bulb hanging from the ceiling fixture. Thom yanked the chain and the dim bulb cast its yellow light on four mats of straw covered in blankets, folded neatly. The priest must have made them up for them while they washed up. He called to the team and they brought their weapons and other sensitive equipment inside with them. The warmth of the fire and the soft bedding made up for them made them realize how tired they all were after the all night ordeal they'd been through.

"We need to get some rest," Thom said finally, "Look after the gear while I go find Karina or the priest and try to find out what the hell we're going to do next."

They all nodded as Thom left them in the little room. The three men each picked out a spot and collapsed onto the soft bedding, wanting to just fall asleep but unable to relax enough to do so. They all kept their weapons close.

Finally, Nick broke the silence, asking, "So, do you guys know anything, because I got nothin'."

"Thom had a sit down with her when we were…" Marcos said, stopping in mid sentence. He was suddenly reminded that they'd lost Ibrahim and that, as their medic, it had been his responsibility to keep him alive. He stared at the floor, lost in his own guilt and remorse as Nick looked over, waiting for him to finish.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, Nick said, "Hey man, what happened to Heeb, that's not on you. We all know that sometimes shit happens, so don't try and put this on just yourself."

Marcos only nodded. Carter laid his hand on Marcos's shoulder and squeezed, then let his hand fall back to his side and breathed out deeply, saying, "I'm still just as clueless as you man."

They sat in silence for a few more minutes before Thom walked back in, telling them, "Karina's cleaning up. When she's done we're going upstairs for some hot breakfast, courtesy of the priest, and then we're going to get some sleep."

"So, can you tell us what's going on now?" Nick asked.

Thom looked at each of them and said, "We stumbled into a fuckin' mess is what's going on. Karina's some kind of special agent with the Bio-terror something or other agency. Urchenko was buying some freaky virus from some other cunt when we just happened to drive by, minding our own business. Karina and her partner crashed the meet and stole some of the shit before they got chased out of the woods and shot to hell.

"Then you decided to get us involved," Thom said sternly, pointing at Nick.

Nick stood up, confused, and after a moment asked, "Are you blaming me for what happened?"

Thom just glared at Nick for a brief second and said, "I said, we didn't need a fight."

"So what were we going to do? Just watch those dicks execute her and hope they didn't notice us?" Nick's temper was rising at having to defend himself to his own friend and he could feel his blood running hot.

Thom started shouting, taking a step towards Nick as he did, "You could've let me make that fuckin' choice! It's my goddamn job!"

"Enough!" Carter yelled, standing up between the two, "Our team doesn't do this grade school bullshit!"

He eyed both of them coldly before continuing, "Thom, we would've been spotted, by the ones after her or the other assholes that followed us. You can't lay the blame on Nick for doing what he thought was right. Like it or not this shit just simply happened _to us_ , not because of us."

Thom ran his hand over his mouth and sighed heavily, looking down at the floor. After a brief pause he started nodding his head and looked up at them.

"You're right mate," he said, then looked at Nick, "I'm sorry."

They stood there silently for a moment, cooling down before Marcos asked, "You said something about a virus?"

Thom looked at each of them apprehensively before finally saying, "Yeah, but I'm going to let Karina get into that because you just wouldn't believe me."


	6. Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Trapov Village, Edonia

7:20 am September 19th, 2010

They all sat down to wait for Karina to finish cleaning up, trying to keep themselves from falling asleep with thoughts of how hungry they were. Nick could still smell a hint of the sewer stench on him and feel the ache in his back and legs from crawling around in the tunnels for so long. His mind started drifting back to the firefight and when Ibrahim was killed. He was starting to "what if" the situation until he made himself angry and tried to clear his head.

He heard the water running in the washroom, just on the other side of the wall he was leaning against. He started thinking about Karina, the shine of the moonlight off of her raven black hair, her ice blue eyes staring right into him, and the way her lips moved as she formed her words with her unmistakable accent. He'd only had a few glances of her over the last few hours, but he could picture her in his mind as clear as if she was standing right in front of him. He wanted to believe it was some kind of connection, but it was entirely possible that he felt that way because she was the first attractive woman he'd seen in almost a month.

After a few minutes he said, "Maybe I should go in there and ask her to hurry, see if she needs a hand with anything?"

This got them all smiling for a few seconds before Marcos said, "That girl just crawled through a sewer and she's still out of your league."

Nick came right back with, "We've already got that much in common."

Carter cut in, "You just can't turn it off, after all the shit that happened. Unbelievable."

"Come on man," Nick pleaded, "On a scale of one to ten, she goes to eleven."

"She is pretty hot," Marcos said.

"Scalding," Nick corrected.

"Honestly mate," Thom began, "there is no way in hell. Worst. Timing. Ever."

"Thom is correct," called out Karina from in the hallway.

The door opened and Karina stood there in the hall, dressed in clean clothes she had stored at the church. While they all wore their ill-fitting brown peasant garb, she had on clean gray cargo pants, a pair of slippers, and a gray, form fitting, long sleeved shirt that revealed her healthy, athletic figure. She had a sly smile on her face as she looked at them.

She let her comment hang in the air for a moment as she locked eyes with Nick, then said, "Father Mikhail is waiting for us to join him for breakfast."

As they stood up to follow her upstairs she turned in the doorway to face them, this time her expression was more serious, "Before we go, I want to say thank you, to all of you, and I am deeply sorry about your friends."

They nodded, their minds flashing back through their individual guilt and loss quickly before they shook it off as she said, "All that the good father knows is that we were here to look for a smuggler and you are soldiers who have helped me. That is all he should know."

"We understand," Carter said.

"Thank you," she said before she turned and led the way up the hallway towards the stairs.

Nick asked, "Do you want me to stay with the gear boss?"

"Come on and eat," Thom replied, "I'm sure it'll be fine right there for a little while."

Nick just shrugged and followed his teammates out into the hallway. He was a little uneasy about leaving their gear unattended but he was too worn out to care enough to risk starting another fight with Thom about it. He figured that, if he stayed, he'd just end up falling asleep anyways, so there really wasn't any point in worrying about it.

They walked up the stairwell, through the wooden door at the top, and found themselves in a small, grayish-brown colored kitchen. The smells of the freshly prepared food made their mouths water. Another, smaller wood burning stove sat on the far wall with a kettle and a pot sitting on the flat surface over the heat of the fire. To either side of the stove were countertops with simple, unfinished cabinets below them. The wall to their left side was lined with tall pantry closets, split by a table in the center sitting below a window that looked out across the church grounds at the village wall to the north. Along the right side of the room there was a large, old refrigerator and more counter space with a chipped porcelain sink. In the center of the kitchen was the small table set with six chairs, three on either side. Dishes, cups, and flatware for each place were crammed together on the table that was probably built for no more than four.

Father Mikhail was scooping a scrambled egg type of dish into a large bowl on the table as they started to circle around it. Warm biscuits filled a cloth lined basket next to the bowl and a large pitcher sat next to that. He looked up at them as they entered, smiling as he gestured to the chairs.

"Please sit and help yourselves," he said, "Would anyone like tea?"

They all said yes and thanked their host as they sat down. To the right sat Karina, Thom, and Carter with Marcos and Nick on the left side. They left the seat nearest the stove open for Father Mikhail, who traded the skillet for the tea kettle and went about filling their cups.

Karina scooped some of the egg dish onto her plate and explained, "This is harucha; eggs, vegetables, herbs and goat cheese, all from here in the village."

"It smells great," Thom said as he took the spoon from her and started scooping a large portion for himself.

Nick grabbed a biscuit and pulled it open to spread some butter on it. He was about to take a bite when Marcos jammed his elbow into his side, glaring at him. Nick looked like he had no idea what was going on so Marcos nodded towards the priest with his head. Finally, Nick realized that they were in a church and set the biscuit on his plate.

After they'd all filled their plates, Marcos asked, "Father, could you lead us in prayer?"

The old man smiled and nodded before clasping his hands together and saying a short prayer of thanks in his native tongue. After he concluded he opened his hands and gestured for them to begin.

The team devoured their food as if they'd been starved for days. They quickly ate what they'd initially served themselves and all but Karina and Father Mikhail went for more harucha. With the food they had their tea and fresh milk from the pitcher on the table. When they were finished they sat back and complimented the priest on how good the meal was. He thanked them and Thom offered to help clean up, but he shook them off and insisted that they go get some rest. With full stomachs, dry clothes, and a warm place to lie down, no one put up any kind of resistance to the suggestion.

Karina stood up, yawning and stretching before pointing at a doorway next to the refrigerator, telling the men, "There is a bathroom just around to the right, through there."

They nodded and got up to follow her back downstairs. She opened the first door, across from the open furnace area, and said, "I will be right here. We can talk when we've all rested."

They nodded as they passed her. Nick smiled at her, but as soon as he made eye contact she blinked and looked away, then shut the door quickly. He shook his head and followed the rest of the team into the small room, crammed with their weapons and radios. Each of the men went straight for their bedroll and curled up in the blankets without saying a word. As he was drifting off to sleep, Nick could not stop thinking about Karina.

He woke up feeling worn out and beaten down, groaning at the stiffness in his back and legs as he sat up and looked around dark little room. The air was cool and the stink of the sewer was replaced with the pleasant smell of wood smoke. The rest of the team were still sleeping, so he quietly got up and stretched out his back before he picked up his go bag and made his way across the floor. He slowly opened the door, silently stepped out into the hall, and shut the door carefully. A thin beam of light from underneath the door at the top of the stairs illuminated the stairwell and cast some ambient light into the hallway.

The house was quiet as he walked into the furnace room to check on his clothes and gear. He noticed the fire in the wood burning stove was burned down to a few embers, so he selected some of the thinner pieces of wood and threw a few in the chamber, then placed a thick log on top. He latched the chamber and went back to his clothes, finding them dry. He sniffed his clothing and could still smell a hint of the sewer, but mostly smelled soap and smoke.

He gathered up his clothing and most of his gear from the lines and brought them up the stairs where the brightness of the sunlight made him squint. After setting his clothes on the table Nick took a look at his mud caked watch. It was just after two in the afternoon, which meant that lunch was probably out of the question. He didn't think he'd already be so hungry after eating so much for breakfast. He went through his pile of stuff and pulled out his green, long-sleeved thermal Henley shirt along with his tan cargo pants and took them, along with his go bag, to the bathroom.

After turning on the light and using the toilet he took off the peasant garb and pulled a clean pair of boxer-briefs, socks, and a t-shirt from his go-bag, putting them on before pulling his cargo pants on over them. The pants were a combination of carpenter and cargo pants, made of rip-stop style denim and Nick found them much more comfortable and durable than any other pants he'd worn, including military uniforms. He put on a simple tan, cotton t-shirt, one of the dozens he still had from his time in the military. He took another whiff of the Henley shirt and got a nostril-full of strong odor, so he decided to just toss it in the trash on his way out.

He folded up the peasant garb and set it on the toilet seat before he pulled his toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste from a pocket of his go bag. As he was brushing his teeth he was thinking that he should add some deodorant to his go-bag after they got back to their camp. He turned on the faucet and cupped his hand to get some water to rinse out his mouth. He froze for half a second while he was swishing the water around in his mouth, realizing that they might not have jobs after this. The team had lost two company Humvees, a locally rented flatbed truck, all the equipment that they'd picked up along with the radios, ammo, and other gear that had still been in their trucks, had one dead team member buried in the woods south of Antrusia and another missing altogether.

He spit the water out and cupped his hands under the water again, splashing some on his face and running his hands through his long hair. He'd let it grow out since he finished his time in the Army two years ago. His bangs could almost reach his chin now, but he usually kept it swept back under his ball cap. He grabbed a towel off a rack and dried his face, returning it neatly and gathering his things.

The door opened and a startled Karina was halfway in before she stopped, saying, "I apologize, I didn't realize anyone else was up."

"Its fine," Nick said, "I was just on my way out."

She watched him sling the bag and gather up the peasant garb and sandals before he turned to walk out, facing her. They locked eyes and just stood there in an awkward silence before Nick pointed back towards the kitchen.

"I'm," he began stupidly, "I kind of need to get by."  
She looked down at the floor as she stepped out the way, her face flushing red. He passed by her quickly but, as he did, he inhaled her sweet fragrance and it made him pause mid-step as she entered the bathroom and shut the door in a hurry. It was faint, but it was soft, warm, and reminded him of a high school girlfriend. No one specifically, the smell just reminded him of that time in his life, flooding his mind with the echo of feelings he hadn't felt since before he decided to devote his life to soldiering.

He walked into the kitchen, suddenly thankful that he hadn't stunk up the bathroom. How good Karina smelled made him self-conscious of how unclean and grimy he still felt, even after the shower and hard wash he'd given his clothes. He set the brown pajamas on the table in the kitchen and started looking around for a trash bin to toss his nasty shirt in.

While the kitchen was a fairly good size and the table could seat six, Nick found that there really was not that much food in any of the cabinets or fridge. He figured that the priest probably lived, for the most part, off of the generosity of his parish, whether through donations of food or simply being treated to a meal by some of the villagers. For him to feed the extra five people must have been a real burden and it would only get harder if they continued to stay.

Finally, he located a small basket under the sink with some food scraps and tissues inside it and tossed in his green shirt. He was washing his hands when he saw Karina enter past the refrigerator and eye him.

After a moment she asked, "Nick, correct?"

He smiled. Every time he heard someone say his name with a Slavic or Russian accent, he always thought of the movie Top Secret and Val Kilmer's character Nick Rivers. The girls in the movie always pronounced it _Neek_ , just as Karina had.

He dried his hands on a nearby towel and turned towards her, answering, "Yeah, that's right."

"You're American?" she asked.

"Yeah, Carter, Marcos and I are American," Nick replied, "Thom's an Aussie. What about you, are you Edonian?"

"Not exactly," she said, "I'm Romanian, from Transylvania, but when I was born, Edonia was a part of Romania."

"Your English is great," he told her.

"Thank you," she said, smiling, "I studied hard at University and have tried to use it as much as I could. I also speak Russian and a little Polish."

Nick was captivated by her voice and accent, hanging on every syllable that she spoke. After a brief pause he asked, "So, what's going on? Why are you in Edonia now?"

She leaned against the fridge and said, "I work for an international organization and my partner and I were investigating a lead that brought us here."

"Like Interpol?" he asked.

"Like it, yes, but with a very specific purpose," she stopped and glanced at the stairs, saying, "We should wait for the others and I will explain everything."

"Fair enough," Nick said, trying to think of something else to say. She was looking at him like she wanted to say something or ask him something, so he prompted her, saying, "Something on your mind Karina?"

"You," she started, pausing before she finished, "you are mercenaries?"

"Very similar, I suppose," he told her, "but not quite the same thing, we're contractors. Kind of like a branch of the military that can be employed outside of the U.S. when the government doesn't want to deploy the actual military."

"I don't understand," she said, shaking her head slightly.

Nick smiled at her and said, "The U.S. government wants to help everybody, like the established government of Edonia, but after the way Iraq and Afghanistan turned out it would be political suicide to deploy our troops again. The military is spread pretty thin as it is and the people back home are tired of sending young men and women off to fight someone else's war.

"So, the U.S. government takes a look at what the Edonian government is asking for help with, specifically, and they start hiring private military contractors, companies like the one I work for, to do those specific jobs. Some guys are here just to provide security for important officials who need to move around the country, some work as instructors for the Edonian Army, while some of us serve as advisors and mentors for local volunteer militias that aren't quite part of the legitimate Army."

"So you're not soldiers, but you're not mercenaries?" she asked, squinting at him suspiciously.

"Right, we're contractors. It sounds less threatening, doesn't it?" he asked.

She smiled at him, which made him smile again, and said, "I suppose so."

"We used to be regular soldiers," he began, "of one kind or another. I was in the Army for almost ten years before I started doing this kind of work a couple years ago."

After a few moments of thought, she asked, "So what made you want to do this instead of being a normal soldier?"

He shrugged, "Honestly, this kind of work just suits me, you know. I mean, contracting can give you some amount of control over where you go and what you do. It sort of depends on what kind of experience and training you've had, but it beats not having any choice, which is what you get in the Army."

They both heard footsteps coming up the stairs and turned to see Marcos, still wearing the brown peasant outfit and carrying his things. He was yawning as he walked in and nodded at Nick leaning against the counter then saw Karina standing against the refrigerator. He straightened up and his eyes brightened as he smiled at her.

She smirked and said, "Good afternoon."

He stopped and looked at his watch, saying, "Oh man, we were really out, huh?"

"Are the others up?" Nick asked.

"They're getting up and grabbing their stuff now. How long have you been up?" Marcos asked.

"Not long," Nick said.

Marcos nodded, then said, "I'm gonna go change."

He gave Karina a sly glance as he passed by her on his way out of the kitchen. She looked at Nick and blushed slightly, but he just shrugged again.

"He was a Navy Seal," Nick told her, "they're all like that."

"Interesting," she said, smiling at him.

They stood in silence for a few moments, just smiling at each other before she lowered her head slightly and asked, "So, you were a sniper in the Army?"

"Uh, yeah, I was sniper qualified, but that's not all I did. I was in the Special Forces and, before that, I was Infantry."

"Oh," she remarked. After a short pause she said, "I used to be a police officer, in Bucharest."

"Really?" Nick asked, "You don't look like a cop."

She smiled and said, "I've been told that, many times."

Now he looked at the floor, saying, "I'll bet."

"That's why I joined the B.S.A.A.," she stated, "No one was taking me seriously as a police officer. They just wanted me to answer the telephones and sit at the front desk, even though I could out shoot most of the men and out run them on the obstacle course. I kept trying to do real police work, but no one was interested in helping me, so, after three years, I left."

"What's the B.S.A.A.?" Nick asked.

Footsteps coming up the stairs distracted them once again as Thom and Carter walked up, already dressed in their own clothes. Thom wore his brown Carhardt cargo pants and a black t-shirt with his blonde hair all over the place. Carter had on his favored brand of cargo pants and a long-sleeved, black, quarter-zip Nike shirt over a tan t-shirt. Both of them had their pistol belts on with their sidearms secured in their drop-leg holsters.

Thom saw them standing in the kitchen and said, "Good, everyone is up."


	7. Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Trapov Village, Edonia

2:40 pm September 19th, 2010

"Did you get a chance to go over everything?" Thom asked Karina. When she nodded he said, "So we can all sit down and you can tell us what the hell is going on then?"

She nodded again.

Marcos walked back into the kitchen from changing in the bathroom and stacked his peasant garb on top of Nick's pile on the table. He wore black cargo pants and a black t-shirt with a white Navy Seal BUDs trident on the left side of the chest. He looked at the others and finally turned to Thom.

"Think we can get some lunch first?" Marcos asked.

"You want to cook us something?" Thom asked.

Marcos shrugged helplessly and Karina said, "Please, let's talk downstairs."

Once again, they followed her lead as she walked down the flight of stairs and into the room she had stayed in, across the way from the wood burning stove. Inside was a simple cot along the left wall with a few blankets stretched over it. A laptop was open on a small table against the back wall with a short stool beside it. Next to that was a black rolling duffel bag, not unlike Nick's own deployment bag, that was full of more of Karina's clothing and gear. Sitting on the duffel was the small backpack she had been carrying the previous night.

The right side of the room was lined with more barrels and boxes that were piled with full canvas sacks and other odd furniture. The men all crammed into the small open area inside and shut the door while Karina turned on the laptop to let it boot up while she pulled the metallic case out of the bag. She bent over to log into the operating system and the men couldn't help but appreciate her backside.

She stood up and faced them, saying, "The organization I work for is the Bio-terror Security Assessment Alliance. Its purpose is to track down the sale or use of biological weapons and bring those responsible to justice, and our jurisdiction is international."

Marcos shifted uncomfortably at the mention of bio-weapons as she continued, "We tracked a former Umbrella Corporation researcher to Warsaw, but he'd already arranged to have a new weapon delivered to Andru Urchenko. My partner and I followed the lead here to try and stop the transaction.

"While we were able to locate the man making the delivery we could not intercept him before he met with Urchenko's men. If he would have stopped somewhere we could have delayed him until our tactical Special Operations Unit could meet us and assist, but he kept moving. We barely caught up to him ourselves and were forced to act alone.

"When he finally stopped at the meet site in the forest, we had very little time to try and intervene, but there were many of Urchenko's men. Levi, my partner, snuck up to the delivery vehicle and managed to get this," she said picking up the case and opening it, "There were two more cases that he couldn't get to before he was spotted. We tried to prevent them from following us by destroying their vehicle, but there were just too many. They followed us, shot Levi, and then we crashed where you found me."

She blinked away forming tears and the team stared at the vials in the metal case. The liquid in the helical glass tubes was blue and cloudy and Nick could have sworn that he saw it moving in the tubes. Either that or something in the strange, viscous liquid was moving.

Carter spoke, asking, "Umbrella was supposedly responsible for the destruction of Raccoon City. A story broke out about a zombie virus that turned out to be a hoax. Are you saying that it wasn't? That this virus here turns people into actual, undead zombies?"

"Yes," she answered flatly, "but it's not just that. That was one of the first biological weapons of its kind and was uncontrollable. This virus is a combination of what destroyed Raccoon city, known as the T-Virus, and another bio-weapon, an ancient parasite called Las Plagas."

"The Plagues?" Marcos asked.

She closed the lid of the case and set it down on the table before she turned the laptop so that they could all see the screen. She double clicked a file and started a slide show of pictures, starting with a microscopic image of a strange organism that resembled a crayfish without legs. It then proceeded to show a series of pictures of simple villagers in some third world region, not unlike Edonia. All of the people looked pale and sick, but they appeared to be living normal lives, farming and performing normal chores.

Karina spoke as the images continued to cycle, "A U.S. Government Agent took these pictures while searching for the president's kidnapped daughter in 2003. The region was under the dominion of a religious cult leader."

As the slide show continued they showed the villagers mutilating the body of a local police officer. Then they showed a series of mutated humans with large tentacles growing out of their necks in place of their head. There were giant hulking beasts bound in chains, deformed humanoids without any features that had spikes protruding out from all over their body, and even overgrown insect-like creatures, straight out of a science fiction movie.

"These creatures are all results of Las Plagas. The cult leader had total control over them using a version of the parasite which allowed him to dominate anything that was infected with Las Plagas. He plotted to subjugate the U.S. with it.

"Shortly afterwards, the B.S.A.A. was created. Then, a few years ago, two of our agents tracked a sale in the West African country of Kijuju. It involved a mutation of Las Plagas that was used by a former Umbrella researcher with the intentions of covering the globe with it. Since his death we have been keeping tabs on all of the researchers who worked on projects like these, from Umbrella, Tricell, and Willpharma. That's how we got onto Dr. Leukin's trail."

After a few moments, Marcos asked, "So this virus will do what, exactly?"

"According to the documents Levi and I found in the laboratory in Warsaw, this is a highly refined viral parasite," she began, holding up a thick folder, "Each of the vials contains a Plagas Major that uses elements of the T-Virus to allow that individual to infect others with Plagas Minor. All they would need to do is bite or transfer the virus through bodily fluids and the infected would become their undead slave. It can then be passed by that slave and on and on, creating more slaves as they kill, all under control of the individual infected by the Plagas Major."

"So Andru wants to use this to subjugate the government forces and take over," Carter said, pausing before he added, "If he even stops there. If this thing works like you say it does he could go anywhere he wants, really."

"Is there a way to stop this?" Thom asked, "To kill these things?"

"I don't know for sure," Karina answered, "Destroying the brain stopped those infected with the T-Virus, but the Plagas parasite itself needed to be destroyed to stop those infected with it. The longer they were infected, the harder it became to do, according to the reports."

"Have you contacted your people?" Carter asked.

She nodded, saying, "Yes. One of our S.O.U. teams is en route to the airfield outside of Antrusia already with more to follow in the next few weeks. They will bring as much manpower as it takes to stop Urchenko, but we need to get this container back to our headquarters so they can develop a serum or an anti-virus."

Thom rubbed the back of his neck and said, "So we've got to move fast or this is going to become nearly unstoppable."

"I'm afraid so," she said.

"I guess we should find a truck and get on the road," Nick said.

"As soon as Father Mikhail comes back we can see if he can help us out or at least point us in the right direction," Thom said, "In the meantime, get your shit together and be ready to roll."

The men filed out to the furnace room to get their things together. Nick sat at the foot of the stairs to put on his boots while Thom and Carter were getting their armor on and stuffing ammo back into the pouches when they all heard yelling, coming from outside of the house. Before they could react Karina was running up the stairs with her Beretta in hand. Nick sprinted up after her while the rest of the team hurried to get their gear put back together.

As Nick burst into the kitchen right behind Karina they heard a door slam in the hallway and a panicked wail born of sheer terror. They rushed around the corner and found Father Mikhail pushing against the door at the end of the hall past the bathroom. He was struggling to fit a beam into brackets on either side of the door to barricade it closed. Someone was pounding on the other side of the door and trying to shove it open. Blood was smeared all over the inside of the door as the priest kept pushing his arm against it.

Nick ran past Karina and violently push kicked the door closed, pressing with all his weight to hold it shut while Father Mikhail slid the beam into the brackets. Karina held her pistol up, ready to take aim if need be. She looked at the priest who was clutching his left arm, the blood seeping out between his fingers, covering right hand. His face was pale and his breathing rapid and erratic.

"What the hell happened?" Nick shouted as the pounding on the door grew more consistent.

Karina led the priest into the kitchen as he said, "Some of the farmers came in from the fields. They were hurt, attacked by someone."

Nick quickly scanned out the windows, seeing several villagers striding towards the small house. He drew the curtains shut as Father Mikhail winced in pain and continued, "Suddenly they got much worse, like something was killing them, from inside."

Thom came bounding up the stairs, wearing his body armor, with his M4 in hand and his go bag slung loosely over one shoulder, saying, "What the fuck happened?"

Karina looked at him and said, "I think it's here."

Thom looked at Nick and said, "Go get your shit; I've got a feeling we've worn out our welcome."

Nick ran down the flight of stairs past Marcos and Carter on their way up to the kitchen with their weapons ready. He started grabbing his gear and quickly refilled the pouches with the radio, frags, and his medical supplies. He could hear the raised voices of his teammates upstairs, in the kitchen, trying to figure out what the hell was happening as he was getting it all put on as quickly as he could.

He threaded his Rigger's belt through the belt loops of his pants and his first line gear, which he tried to keep below his belt line by using a sub loads. On his right thigh was his drop leg holster and on his left was a custom made drop leg panel with a pistol magazine pouch with three full mags. Behind the pistol mag pouch was his Gerber LMFII fixed blade knife, which he wore more for utility and survival than any delusions he had of knife fighting. That's what he had guns for.

His sidearm was his Para Ordnance high capacity 1911, which had fourteen round magazines, tritium night sights, and an integral light rail. Attached to the rail was an Insight M6 pistol light. Nick only loaded thirteen rounds in the mags to keep pressure off the springs and ensure his ammo fed reliably. It was a heavy sidearm, but Nick had put more rounds through that platform than any other gun and he felt like carrying a lot of the heavy .45 caliber rounds would serve him well since all he normally had was a long range bolt gun. He pulled back the slide just enough to confirm that there was still a round in the chamber, let it go, and flipped the safety up. He holstered it and snapped the lock over the holster, securing it in place.

Next he put on his plate carrier which had a wide pouch centered on his chest that was filled with twenty rounds of ammo for his bolt gun. Below it, on the Velcro flap that secured the cummerbund that wrapped around his sides, was a similar looking pouch holding twelve rounds of 12gauge 00 buckshot. To the right side of the shotshell pouch was a small utility pouch containing his trauma kit. On the left side was a radio pouch for his MBITR radio, a very portable, easy to use, secure communications system. Just under his kidneys were two frag grenade pouches. On his back was a hydration bladder, still full of water.

Nick put in his Peltor earpro, which were designed to protect against harmful levels of noise, like gunfire, while allowing safe decibel levels to be heard clearly. He turned the knobs on each earmuff and plugged the cord into the Push to Talk box on his vest, which was plugged into his radio. He also put on his pair of hard-knuckled shooting gloves. They were a little stiff from getting soaked and then drying them out near a fire, but they would soften back up in no time.

As the shouting upstairs got louder and more urgent the pounding on the door and walls intensified, like the entire house was being barraged. He picked up the Mossberg 500 pump-action shotgun and checked to make sure he still had a shell in the chamber and that it was still on safe. The magazine tube of the shotgun held five more shells and it had a side saddle on the receiver loaded with six more 00 Buckshot. He'd replaced the standard stock with a pistol grip and gotten a heat shield to cover the eighteen and a half inch barrel. The quick adjust sling was attached to the grip and a sling point on the side. He swung it over his shoulder and slung it so that it was pointed at the ground to his left side.

He reached down to pick up his sniper rifle and heard gunshots from upstairs, followed by more shouting and then more shooting. He'd left the rifle in the same condition as it was in when they were moving to the village, which meant that the internal mag was filled with five rounds and an expended casing was still in the chamber. The five loops on the cheekpad were still empty and he was pissed at himself for not re-filling them before he'd gone to sleep. He shouldered his go bag and got up to join the others upstairs.

As Nick stepped into the dark cellar hallway, he was startled by movement off to his left, causing him to step back slightly. In the shadows of the basement, Nick saw a man slowly coming out of the storeroom door, where the sewer hatch was located. The stench of waste and filth hit him and Nick noticed the erratic, unnatural way his body moved as he limped and stepped forward, his arms hanging down at his sides. Light glistened off something that was on the side of the man's neck and he croaked out what might have been a word, but it gurgled in his throat and was lost in the darkness.

Suddenly the man lurched forward, reaching out with both hands to grab at Nick, snarling as he lunged with his rotting, blood covered teeth barred like some kind of animal. Nick swept the barrel of his sniper rifle across, knocking the assailant's arms to the side, then reversed and smashed the heavy stock into his jaw. The force of the blow sent the man backwards off his feet, slamming into the door and breaking it off of its hinges. The flimsy wooden door fell against the inside wall of the storeroom and the man clumsily went down with it, rolling to the floor limply.

From upstairs Nick heard glass shattering and more shooting, this time from three or four guns at the same time, all over the little house. He set down the go bag and rifle and drew his pistol as the man he'd struck got back up and turned to come at him again. He flicked on the pistol light and got a good look at the man as he stumbled over the edge of the door and into the hall once more.

The hands that reached out towards Nick were mangled, several of the fingers broken and bent at odd angles. Open wounds were packed with grime and the skin of his forearms and elbows were all torn apart and shredded. His face was pale and drawn, smeared with muck and shit from the sewer and his jaw was crooked, jutting at an odd angle to the right side of his face. His neck was ripped open and hunks of coagulated blood hung from the edges of the gruesome wound. His eyes were a sick shade of yellow with pin-prick pupils that seemed to ooze blood. They never shifted, didn't react to the light at all. They were completely devoid of any spark of intelligence or sign of life. He was infected; one of the monsters Karina was talking about.

Nick lined up the front sight and pressed the trigger, shooting it in the forehead from three feet away. As the solid bullet passed through its skull blood, brains, and bits of bone sprayed the doorway and the man's head jerked back sharply. He fell backwards onto the wooden door, completely still. Nick kept his pistol aimed at the body and waited a few seconds to make sure that he was completely dead.

Through the shouting and sporadic gunfire coming from the kitchen, Nick could hear Karina's voice over the others but couldn't make out what she said. He was about to grab the rest of his gear and head upstairs when a hand reached around the doorway. Another filth covered man stumbled into the light from his gun light, dressed in peasant garbs similar to what they had spent the morning in, except this man's were soaked, torn, and reeked. The second zombie shakily stepped over the body and came into full view in the hallway.

Nick quickly fired at his head just as he was stepping forward, lazily swaying as he walked. The round slammed into the side of his face, next to his left eye and blood and skin from the side of his head sprayed the wall. His ear hung loosely from the top of his jaw and his scalp was flopping a little below the path along his skull where the round ripped through skin, but not bone. The man barely flinched as half his head was torn open, stepping up and raising his arms to lunge.

Nick fired a rapid pair of shots, striking the man between the eyes and in the middle of his left eyebrow. His skull blew apart and the top of his head hung by the scalp off the right side of his head. Blood and brain matter exploded out the back all over the hallway walls and the body fell backwards, limp and still. The carnage was as bad as Nick had ever seen, since he'd never had to shoot anyone that close to him before.

He took a deep breath of putrid air and was about to holster his pistol when he was startled by Karina, who ran down the stairs and dashed into the room with her gear in it, shouting, "We can't leave this behind!"

While she packed the black bag with the documents, metal case and some other necessities, Nick focused his gun light on the blood splattered hall once again. Crawling over the two bodies lying in the doorway was a third infected villager. The left side of his face below his eye was a torn and bloody mess and his left forearm looked like chunks of flesh and meat were bitten and ripped off. Thick clumps of blood oozed from the wounds and plopped onto the floor in chunky coagulated piles. He clawed at the floor to pull himself over the bodies, his eyes locked on Nick with a vacant yet violent desperation.

Nick aimed at his eyes and fired two rounds through his skull watching with some satisfaction as the creature fall flat on its face, his head now a misshapen orb of destroyed bone and gore. He heard Karina run up the stairs behind him as he flicked the safety up and switched off the gun light before he holstered his pistol, securing the snap over the hammer instinctively. In one motion he scooped up his rifle and bag, the MICH still attached to the outside of it, and then followed her up to the kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time.

Thom was piling chairs against the table, which was turned up on its end with the flat surface pushed up against the window on the left wall. He could see shards of shattered glass on the floor, sticking to dozens of clumps of thick blood below the window. Fists or farm tools pounded against the table, shaking the makeshift barricade. He heard Carter fire a rapid series of rounds in the hallway and saw the back of his tan body armor vest through the doorway on the right. He was facing the window at the opposite end of the hallway from the front door, locking it down from more undead villagers with well aimed shots from his M4A1 Carbine. Nick could still hear the pounding on the front door of the little house and realized that someone was hacking at it with an axe.

On the floor of the kitchen lay Father Mikhail, barely breathing, his eyes fluttering but nearly shut. He was moaning weakly and his skin was colorless as Marcos tried to treat him. The wound on his arm was bandaged tightly and the bleeding seemed to be controlled, but his vitals just kept on getting weaker and weaker. Marcos was desperately trying to save him but he was at a loss, there was nothing else that could be done.

"He's fucking dying, man! I can't help him!" Marcos yelled.

"Get away from him!" Karina screamed as she drew her Beretta once more and aimed it at the dying priest.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Thom shouted.

"He's going to turn!" she stated coldly, "He'll be one of them and then he'll infect you, now get away!"

Marcos stood up, taking a couple steps back as he shouldered his aid bag, saying, "This is fucked!"

"I think they're in the bathroom!" Carter yelled urgently as he changed mags, "I could use some help here!"

Marcos ran into the hall and saw a hole in the top half of the front door with blood covered arms reaching through. He saw one of them halfway inside the house, pinned against what was left of the door by other infected villagers pushing to try and get through. He brought up his MP5A2 and started shooting, killing the villager stuck halfway in first, then taking shots at whatever else he could see through the door. There seemed to be no end of them, like the entire village was clustered around the house, trying to get in.

"We can get to the attic from the bedroom across the hall!" Karina shouted.

Thom, still holding the table barricade against the kitchen window, looked at Nick and jerked his head towards the hall, yelling, "Go!"

As Nick came up behind Marcos the bathroom door burst open, slamming into Marcos and knocking him back into Nick. As they both recovered from nearly falling, a pair of villagers lunged out of the bathroom towards them. Marcos instantly reacted, punching the lead man squarely in the chest, stopping the undead man in mid step, and then followed it up with a powerful round kick that sent it flying back into the zombie woman following him. Both of them fell to the tile floor of the bathroom clumsily, a tangle of arms and legs.

Marcos started pumping rounds into the pair as Nick yelled, "You need to shoot them in the head!"

He carefully aimed and disposed of the pair when he saw another through the bathroom door. He sidestepped and fired quickly while Nick opened the door to the bedroom and stepped inside. Marcos finished off his mag and glanced behind him, seeing Carter firing out the window with his back to the bedroom door. He swapped his empty mag with a fresh one and heard Karina fire her pistol seconds before she and Thom ran past into the bedroom.

"Let's go!" Thom yelled to Marcos and Carter.

They rushed inside the little room and slammed the door shut. Thom slid a modest desk against the door while Nick pushed a heavy wardrobe in front of the window on the back side of the house, just as a pair of zombies started beating on the glass. Karina pulled a nightstand under a small hatch in the ceiling and Carter jumped on, slinging his rifle and drawing his Sig P220. He flung open the hatch and shined his pistol light up into the attic. Seeing nothing he signaled the others and Thom and Marcos boosted him up.

As he disappeared into the dark attic they heard the window shatter and pounding on the wardrobe, followed by the sounds of fists slamming against the door. The knob turned and the door opened and inch, slamming into the desk that Thom and Marcos were pushing against the door. Carter appeared in the opening in the ceiling and flashed a thumbs-up and Karina climbed up on the nightstand. Nick boosted her up while Carter helped lift her into the attic.

There was a loud crashing sound from in the kitchen as the table barricade was broken down and splintering wood as the brackets holding what was left of the front door shut were torn from the wall. Suddenly, the entire wall was being beaten on by dozens of fists, tools, and broken hands. The wall trembled, paint chips falling off as it cracked near the ceiling.

"Give me your bags!" Nick shouted.

Thom and Marcos each took off their packs and gave them to Nick to hand up to Carter, then he turned and said, "Thom, you've got to go next. It's going to take both of us to lift you."

He growled but relented and they heaved the huge man up to squeeze through the hatch. Marcos kept one foot pressed against the desk, but it was being pushed, inch by inch, as the zombies in the hall pounded and beat on the door to get at the cornered prey. As soon as Thom was up in the attic, Marcos handed Nick all his gear and focused on pushing the desk against the door, fighting a losing battle to regain inches lost to the zombies. Nick passed Marcos's aid bag and grenade launcher up into the hatch along with his own sniper rifle and go bag.

He turned to look at Marcos just as an arm broke through the wooden door and snagged the shoulder strap of Marcos's gear. Another arm shot through the hole and started trying to claw at the former Seal, who was trying to yank his gear free, giving up more ground to the zombies. He drew his sidearm and started blasting at the arms and through the wooden door. Nick drew his pistol and fired a series of five rounds through the door and wall at eye level, the rounds smashing easily through the plaster walls and flimsy wood door.

Marcos jerked his gear free and stumbled back a step, letting up pressure on the desk altogether. It slid towards the two men as the door was forced open so violently that its hinges were ripped out of the door frame. As the first row of undead tried to force their way in through the door, others were smashing holes in the walls, reaching in and tearing at the interior to create a hole big enough to crawl through. Marcos fired the last four rounds and was surprised when his slide locked back on the empty magazine. He reached for another when Nick pushed him back.

"Go!" Nick yelled, taking well aimed shots with his pistol at any head he saw through the door and walls, "I'm right behind you!"

Marcos stepped on the nightstand and jumped straight up, where he was caught by Thom and Carter who yanked him up into the attic before turning to wait for Nick to do the same. Below, Nick fired his last rounds and just holstered his handgun before turning and picking up the little nightstand. He swung it over his head and smashed it down onto the wave of zombies trying to push into the room and over the desk. It broke into pieces, crushing the afterlife out of one of the zombies as more fought to get past it. The tangled mass of bloody and broken hands and arms stretched, reaching out to try and snag anything they could get a hold of. Nick just stepped under the hatch and jumped straight up into the arms of his waiting teammates who hauled him up into the attic. As soon as his feet were clear they slammed the hatch shut and sat in the darkness for a moment, trying to catch their breath.


	8. Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

Trapov Village, Edonia

3:23 pm September 19th, 2010

In the stillness of the dusty attic, the small group listened to the chaos below, as the room was torn apart and zombies clawed at each other to try and climb up to the hatch. They could hear them speaking, croaking and barking out unfamiliar words, but only one at a time. Karina listened, trying to figure out what was being said by the undead villagers while the men turned on their flashlights or gun lights and scanned the small attic. They spread out, careful to keep their weight on the ceiling joists so they wouldn't fall through the old ceiling and into the houseful of zombies, each of them reloading their weapons as they moved. Nick replaced his spent pistol magazine with one of the three full ones he carried in the pouches sub load.

"Can you tell what they're saying?" Carter asked Karina.

"Attic," she told him, then after a moment, "Burn…Flame."

"Shit," Thom forced through clenched teeth, "Let's find a way out of this."

Beneath the peak of the roof there was just enough room for most of them to stand up; only Thom had to keep his head lowered slightly. They swept their lights across the cobwebbed storage space full of disintegrating junk in boxes and piles all over the place. Behind an antique looking chest that sat across the joists near the gable on the north side of the house, over the kitchen, there was a screened vent with narrow slits that looked out over part of the village. There was another screened vent at the end of the gable to the west, over the front door of the house. Nick crawled to the northern vent and Carter to the western one. As they ripped out the clogged and warped vents to take a look around, Karina moved to the southern gable and began shoving the piles and stacks of forgotten items away from the wall.

"What are you doing?" Thom asked Karina as he walked carefully across the joists to where she was crouched.

"There should be a door to the church here somewhere," she told him as she pushed over a stack of boxes. One of them crashed through a weak spot between the joists and fell onto the outstretched hands of the waiting zombies. The undead caught sight of them in the attic, driving them into frenzy. Thom started shooting at them, picking his shots and easily dispatching them, one after the other, as Karina kept searching for the door.

Nick looked out of the vent on the north side and saw total madness. People who weren't already turned were running and screaming through the dusty cobblestone streets, being chased by what used to be their neighbors and loved ones. More than one house was already on fire and the smoke created a hazy cloud that hung over the rooftops of the once peaceful village. He could see more zombies carrying crudely made torches, all heading in the direction of the little house they were trapped inside. From the western vent, Carter was looking at pretty much the same thing.

"I can't believe I'm going to say this," Nick said, "but the villagers have torches, they're going to burn us out!"

"Torches _and_ pitchforks, this is nuts!" Carter yelled.

Marcos had pulled the two boxes of nine-millimeter ammo that he carried in his med bag and was reloading his empty MP5 stick magazines. He'd just finished with the second mag and was stuffing the remaining ammo back into his med bag when the hatch started to open. It flapped twice as one of the undead slapped at it from below, so Marcos kneeled on the hatch to hold it shut and zipped up his bag. Nick and Carter started crawling back to meet him when Karina called out to all of them.

"Found it!" she screamed, shoving another stack to the side, causing something glass to shatter in the darkness.

"Let me go first," Thom cautioned as he crouched and opened the half-sized door.

He moved through with his rifle up at the ready and immediately hooked to the right with Carter flowing in right behind him to the left. Nick and Marcos shouldered their bags and followed Karina, who was a half step behind Carter and Thom, into a small storeroom filled with boxes of books, stacks of folded cloth curtains, and several dust and cobweb covered ornate candle stands. The room was lit by a pair of narrow windows that faced each other along the walls to their right and left. There was a full sized door in the wall, directly across from the half door they'd come through. Thom and Carter finished checking behind the last of the dust covered stacks of random odds and ends as Nick shut the attic door behind them.

"Clear," Thom announced.

Nick knew that the predominant religion in Edonia was Eastern Orthodox and that their churches were usually either built in the shape of a cross or a simple rectangle. He guessed that they were probably in one of the arms of the cross, above one of the choir nooks. The door would lead into the church's assembly area, the nave, and to the right they would most likely see the narthex, or vestibule, separating the west facing front doors of the church from the nave. In the center of the cross would be a domed ceiling, with the mural adorned templon wall below it, separating the altar sanctuary from the larger nave.

Screaming and the sounds of heavy metal objects being knocked all over the place drew their attention to the door. Thom just kept moving, straight for the door, with Carter and Marcos right behind him. Nick moved to the side of the door and opened it for them. Thom was through the threshold and had hooked to the right before the door had come to a stop, his weapon up following his eyes as he cleared his way into the large room.

They moved along a railed balcony towards the front of the church, past a dozen or so small windows with dusty, clouded glass on their right side. The balcony led through a stone archway to the second floor of the narthex and, presumably, a stairwell which led down to the ground floor near the front doors. On the other side of the long nave of the church, an identical balcony mirrored the one they walked along, stretching from the front to another storeroom above a choir nook. The dome above stretched up for about fifteen meters and inside the concave surface was an almost unrecognizable, faded, and chipped mural painting of Jesus Christ.

While the balcony on their side of the church was clear and free of the undead, on the balcony across from Thom was a family trying to escape from one of them. A woman and two young children cowered behind a man who had impaled a zombie with his pitchfork and was struggling to hold it at bay. It kept pressing on, trying to grasp the man's hands as he kept shoving the farm tool, freeing and then punching the forks back into its belly and chest.

Thom took aim and fired as soon as he saw the zombie, hitting it in the shoulder which knocked it against the wall. The farmer kept it pinned back against a window sill and Thom fired two more rounds into the creature's skull, destroying it. The man freed his pitchfork, quickly waving his thanks to Thom, and hurried his wife and kids into the storeroom behind them.

As the rest of the team lined the narrow balcony they looked down at total chaos and carnage staining nearly every stone in the church with blood. The villagers who sought refuge from the destruction and violence outside were being torn to pieces and consumed by what were once their neighbors, friends, and family, all inside a house of God. A handful of men were holding their own against the undead, beating them back with axes, shovels, and sickles while more feasted on still warm flesh only a few feet away. Still more zombies were crawling in through the few shattered windows on the ground floor, leaving trails of blood down the wall as they tore themselves open on the shards of glass still set in the stone wall. There was a constant barrage of pounding and thudding from the barred doors of the church, echoing through the open double doors separating the vestibule from the nave.

"Jesus Christ," Carter half-whispered.

" _Dios mio_ ," Marcos breathed.

"Take your shots carefully, we're going to need every round we have," Thom told them as he shrugged off his bag.

The rest of the men used the slightly shaky railing next to them to support them as they all took aim below. Nick quickly went through the five rounds in the internal mag of his M24, killing the zombies that were closing in on the remaining uninfected men near the choir nook. They disappeared through a door in the templon wall with an angel painted on it as Nick opened the pouch on his chest with more .308 Winchester rounds, loading them into the magazine and then refilling the elastic loops on the buttstock pouch as the other members of the team finished off the last few that they could from their side of the balcony.

Thom had taken Ibrahim's FN P90 from his pack along with a pair of the extra magazines he had taken from the man's gear, holding them out to Karina and asking, "Do you know how to use one of these?"

"Yes," she said, taking the weapon and stuffing the lengthy mags into the cargo pocket of her pants.

Thom stood up, put on his pack, and said, "Marcos, Carter, we're going down to finish clearing this building. Nick, you cover us from up here, and Karina, stay with Nick. Watch his back."

She nodded as Carter and Marcos followed Thom to the front, disappearing into the stairwell while Nick kept watch on the windows as his teammates moved. About to crawl in through one of the windows on the far side, Nick spotted a woman in a blue dress. She had blood all over her mouth and chin and her eyes were yellow, with tiny rivulets of blood oozing down her cheeks. She was fixated on something in the church, below where Nick and Karina were standing.

He'd kicked out the bipod legs of his sniper rifle and had them pressed against the railing, resting the front of the stock on top of the rail. He had his arms crossed, basically, with his right hand lightly on the grip and his left hand against his shoulder, controlling the buttstock. He lined her up in his scope, holding his hundred meter mil-hold at her hairline and gently pulled the trigger. Her head jerked back slightly as the shot struck her in the middle of her forehead, causing a ripple of hydrostatic shock from the velocity of the round as it ripped through the soft tissue in her skull. It exited at the base of her neck and carried with it most of the contents of her head. The woman's arms jerked up slightly, as if she was surprised that she'd been shot. Nick knew that it was just the force of the round causing a tiny reflexive wave. Then she just fell down and disappeared below the window as he racked the bolt action and continued to hunt for more of the undead.

Thom led the way along the balcony through the stone archway into the dim stairwell at the front of the church. There was a flight of stairs down, from each balcony towards the center, where they met at a landing. Another flight continued down to the ground level in the center of the narthex. On the landing were two zombies, ripping hunks of flesh from a trembling woman with their teeth. They didn't even look up at him as he slowed his gait, took aim, and began firing. His rounds tore into the two zombie's skulls first before he put one into the poor soul they were feasting upon.

They spread out across the central stairs and pressed on down to the narthex, turning on their gun lights in the darkness. The double doors at the base of the stairs, the main entrance for the church, had been barricaded shut with two elaborate brass candle stands. A constant barrage of fists and objects were beating on the doors, but the thick wood held up to the punishment. Marcos and Carter peeled around each side of the base of the stairs and came around to the doors leading into the nave, where they encountered two more zombies, a man and a woman, that were pulling apart what looked like it could have been a child. Without hesitation the duo each put two rounds into the undead monster's faces. They did the same for the mutilated remains between them and then looked at each other long enough to nod once before they kicked open the double doors.

They entered the nave simultaneously and curved to either side with Thom a half step behind, moving up the center of the room. They had to kill three more that were under the balcony that Nick and Karina were watching from and put a single round into any questionable remains, just to be sure. While the undead were chaotic, savage and horrific, the team of well trained men that moved fluidly, covering each other as they executed their enemy with precision fire, was organized, smooth, and much more lethal. They gave each other a nod and in turn, started to load fresh magazines.

"We need to get the fuck out of here!" Thom shouted over the pounding on the doors and screams coming from outside.

Nick smelled smoke and glanced behind him, through one of the small, dingy windows, and saw that the priest's modest house was engulfed in flames. To his amazement, zombies were walking out of the inferno, completely ablaze. They stumbled around, bumping into other zombies and houses, starting more fires, until their muscles or brains were destroyed by the heat, at which point they would finally collapse and burn out. The flames from the roof of Father Mikhail's house were licking the roof of the adjoining church. It wouldn't be long before the beams of the church rafters went up and the aged roof collapsed on them.

There were more screams from outside the front of the church and the sound of squealing tires leading up to a loud crash. Nick and Karina ran through the archway into the second floor of the narthex, rushing to one of the clouded windows facing out the front side of the church. Through the north facing windows Nick had only seen a small portion of the village, but now they were looking out over the rest of Trapov, and it was absolute mayhem.


	9. Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Trapov Village, Edonia

3:36 pm September 19th, 2010

A wide avenue ran generally to the west towards the main gates of the village and it was filled with the shambling undead, all moving towards the church. There were several cars on the road, nearly all of them smashed against walls or other cars, wrecked in the panic. There were zombies piled on top of the cars, reaching through the shattered windows that shredded their arms. There was some still moving undead pinned between the front of some of the cars and the objects they'd crashed into. Blood was everywhere, splattered on every one of the former villagers, on every wall and window, and on nearly every brick of the cobblestone street.

The relentless pounding on the doors of the church gave them all an uneasy sense of urgency as they kept picking off the zombies that were still trying to climb in through the windows. Thom was reloading his third magazine and looked up for Nick and Karina as he did so. He didn't see them on the balcony, so he got on the radio.

"Nick, you guys okay?" Thom asked.

"We're good," Nick answered, "Just getting the lay of the land from the front of the church."

"How's it look?"

"You should really see this," Nick answered.

Thom ran back through the doors to the narthex and bounded up the stairs, joining Nick and Karina at the small window. He caught his breath and stared at the carnage silently for a few moments, then squinted. He tried to rub the glass to clear it, but it only smudged it, making it even more distorted. He growled and punched through the glass, shattering it so he could look through clearly.

"Who's that cunt at the gate, just standing there?" Thom asked.

Nick set his rifle in the smashed out window and looked through the scope, seeing a tall, dark haired man dressed in cargo pants and a jacket, very similar to Karina's. He also had an identical drop leg holster with a pistol in it. The man's torso was covered in blood and Nick could make out several gaping exit wounds from bullet strikes. The skin of his face was pale gray and he had streaks of blood running down his cheeks coming from his eyes.

"Let me see that, please," Karina said with her eyes locked on the figure in horror.

Nick handed her the rifle, holding the P90 for her while she peered through the scope. She sucked in her breath sharply, instantly recognizing her partner.

"Levi," she whispered, then standing she said, "He's infected. They used Las Plagas to bring him back and send him here, where he knew I would have gone!"

"Do you think he's controlling the villagers?" Thom asked as Nick handed Karina the submachine gun and took his rifle back.

"I think so, yes," Karina answered, "They must have injected the Plagas Major into him directly."

Thom turned to Nick, "Can you make that shot?"

"We'll find out," Nick told him as he set his go bag on the floor.

Nick pulled off the shotgun slung around him and set it down next to the bag, then flipped out the bipod legs once more. He pressed the feet of the bipod against the wooden windowsill and leaned into the stock, securing it in place. He was slightly bent over and cradled his arms again, using his left hand and legs to control the weapon as he brought the scope's reticle on Levi. After pulling off his right glove with his teeth he reached over the scope and adjusted the parallax, bringing Levi to the same focal plane as the scope's crosshairs. He blinked a few times to check, satisfied that his eyes didn't have to do any of the work to focus on Levi.

"How tall is he?" Nick asked.

"Um, just a bit shorter than Thom," Karina answered.

"About one point nine meters?" Nick asked

"Yes, close to that," she said.

Nick used the mil-dot reticle to measure how tall Levi appeared in his scope. Blinking, moving the reticle off of him and bringing it back to measure a second time, just to be sure. Both times he measured Levi at three point two mils. He closed his eyes to work through the math in his head. One point nine meters divided by three point two mils tall was the same as nineteen divided by thirty two. Using his fingers he worked out, thirty two times six was one-ninety-two and that was just over what he needed. Nineteen divided by thirty two was a hair under point six, which meant Levi had to be standing just a little bit closer than six hundred meters away.

Nick had zeroed the crosshairs of his sniper rifle to six-hundred meters because it allowed him to use mil-holds to compensate the elevation for longer shots. As his scope was set, he could shoot accurately out to nine hundred meters without having to adjust his scope's elevation setting. He'd memorized the mil-holds in fifty meter range increments, but six hundred was the easiest because the aim point was the crosshairs in the center of the reticle.

He lined the crosshairs on Levi's head, quartering his target, then watched the smoke from the fires to try and measure the wind speed and direction. The columns of smoke between Nick and Levi were all angled slightly to the right, signaling a very light breeze, maybe one or two miles per hour, from left to right. Normally, he wouldn't bother shifting his hold for such a light wind at that range, but he needed a head shot, so he shifted his crosshairs a quarter of a mil to the left to compensate and breathed normally, holding his exhale just long enough to press the trigger.

The rifle kicked but the reticle barely moved off of Levi and Nick caught the trace of his own round as it arched through the air between him and Levi. The trace appeared as a slight distortion of the light as the round compressed the air when it passed and left a vacuum in its wake, disappearing high and in line with Levi's right shoulder just a fraction of a second before the round struck the man in his right cheek. The high velocity and the weight of the round gave it tremendous power at long ranges and it tore apart the entire right side of his face. Nick saw the chunks of flesh, thick dark blood, bone, and even teeth explode out as Levi's head jerked back and to the left. He stumbled back a few steps and then leaned forward, clutching his face.

The relentless pounding on the doors of the church suddenly stopped and the screams of the still living victims outside were the only noise they heard. Nick saw that the rest of the zombies were standing in a stupor, arms at their sides, snarling, blood covered jaws slack and motionless. Nick thought his own breathing sounded strangely loud as he racked the bolt action, chambering another round.

"What the fuck?" Thom shouted after a moment of silence, "Did you kill him?"

Nick was back on the glass when Levi stood up straight. The right side of his face was nearly gone now; his eye was hanging from the socket in front of the gaping hole that used to be his cheek. His jaw was disconnected and a full third of it missing, lying somewhere in shards on the street, leaving his mouth drooping open at an odd angle. His tongue lolled off to the side, flopping out over the dislocated jaw. The muscles on the right side of his neck were blown out, leaving him unable to hold his head up straight anymore. It leaned to the right and thick hunks of blood oozed out, dripping down onto his right shoulder.

Levi's one good eye focused on the church window and Nick could feel the gaze directed at him. Black liquid flowed freely out of the pupil, dripping down his face as Levi roared, gurgling and bubbling thick blood out of the side of his face.

Nearly the entire population of Trapov had been turned into zombies and they all started to frenzy with terrifying vigor. They renewed their pounding on the barred doors with frightening power, rattling and shaking the iron fixtures that held them closed in the solid stone archway. It was so loud that, if he hadn't known better, Nick would have sworn a train was being driven right through the front of the church. The creatures beat on the stone walls, crushing their hands and arms into bloody pulps of mangled flesh and bone as they tried to smash their way through the think stone exterior.

"Fuck!" Marcos shouted as the zombies flooded the windows, trying to crawl through, some coming two at a time. They were forcing their way up as fast as the pair of men could shoot them. Thom started running down the stairs with Karina right behind him.

"Kill that fucker!" Thom yelled as they ran, disappearing through the doors to the nave where they joined Marcos and Carter to fight back the growing tide of undead.

Nick was tracking Levi as he walked down the road, towards the church. Nick felt the vibrations from the creatures violently beating on the church through the riflestock in his shoulder. He aimed at Levi's forehead, trying to give him a slight lead as he walked. He fired quickly, knowing immediately that he had rushed the shot and broke high.

He knew that he'd missed, not even bothering to watch the trace as he immediately racked the bolt. Below he heard the others yelling and screaming that the doors were about to give, rushing him to take Levi out. He aimed again, holding at about four and a half mils, centered on Levi's face and took a breath. He could feel himself shaking from standing in his position too long or maybe from the intense pressure he was under to make the shot. His own body's reaction to the stress was making it more difficult for him to shoot. He stood up and took a breath, then repositioned himself.

He nearly jumped when he heard a thunderous crash and turned to see that the barricaded front doors of the church had been broken out of the stone archway and crashed to the floor kicking up dust and sending bits of stone and wood debris flying into the narthex below him. Karina screamed and then it seemed that everyone in the nave was firing on full auto for a few seconds. Zombies ran into the church, tripping over the wood and stone with more pushing their way inside behind and over top of them. Some of them started to sprint up the stairs, headed for directly for Nick, while more headed around the stairs towards the rest of his team and Karina in the nave.

Nick turned back to his target and tried block everything else out of his mind even as he felt the concussion of a 40mm grenade launched from Thom's M203 at the horde. He exhaled, calmly lining up his point of aim where it needed to be to put the point of impact in the center of zombie Levi's forehead. He ignored the chaos of the fight below and the hundreds of undead, tripping and stumbling up the stairs, trampling each other to reach him. He felt the pounding of footsteps on the balcony behind him as he smoothly pressed the trigger.

This shot broke clean and he watched the trace once more. It lined up just over the left side of Levi's head before the round struck him, dead center in his forehead. What was left of the structure of his skull was destroyed, much of it flying backwards along with what was inside it. As the trail of gore hit the cobblestones in a long path behind him, Levi fell flat on his back, arms straight out to his sides, with nothing even resembling a head any longer. He lay completely still.


	10. Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9

Trapov Village, Edonia

3:41 pm September 19th, 2010

There was an uneasy silence as the firing stopped in the church below. The screams from outside died down and the still quiet made Nick realize that he was heaving breaths. He stood up straight, looking out the window at the street where there had been hundreds of zombies. He couldn't see any until he leaned out the window and looked down the wall of the church.

The undead had surrounded the church completely. Shoulder to shoulder they had tried to pack in and beat their way into the building, with rows upon rows pushing them against the wall from behind. There was blood and gore all over the outside of the church from the creatures beating their arms down to shapeless pulps in their futile struggle against the old stone walls. Now they were all lying on the ground where they fell, lifeless and still the instant Nick had killed Levi.

They were packed in around the front doors of the church and Nick brought his head back inside, following the path the zombies took.

"Holy shit," he whispered, dropping his rifle and leaning back against the corner.

The undead had poured in through the destroyed front doors, nearly filling the first floor of the narthex, some still smoking and smoldering in the aftermath of the devastating 40mm grenade Thom had launched. They were lined up the stairs, dozens of them lying on the stone steps, spread over the landing and up the second set of stairs where they came onto the balcony. The outstretched hand of the zombie closest to him was only a foot behind where he'd been standing when he made the shot. Another fraction of a second and he'd have been overwhelmed.

"Jesus mate," Thom called out from inside the nave of the church, "Could you have cut that a little closer?"

"I seriously doubt that," Nick yelled back as he walked around the front side of the balcony to the other side of the church and through the archway from the narthex to the nave. He saw Thom, Carter, Marcos, and Karina, all standing in the center of the large room, with spent brass all over the floor around them. Lying nearby were the bodies of zombies, arms outstretched, some shot in the head and others without any wounds except what they'd suffered when they were turned. They had poured in through the windows and started to surround the group when the wave of undead had burst in the front doors.

Body parts and chunks of gore were scattered all over the western side of the nave from the grenade Thom had launched. It had blown in the middle of a packed cluster of rushing undead, tearing them apart as more kept coming. In spite of the firepower, lifeless corpses filled the doorway and a tide of them had made their way halfway across the room to where the survivors stood. Almost the entire population of Trapov lay deceased in or around the church.

" _Dios mio_ ," Marcos said once more, making the sign of the cross and kissing his fingers.

Carter looked at the smoking barrel of his rifle, with its bolt locked back on an empty magazine, and announced, "Fuckin' hell, I was out."

Marcos ejected his mag and looked at it, "Me too."

Thom whistled, "I ran dry also."

Karina simply removed her empty magazine and stuffed it in her bag on the bloody floor of the church, whispering, "That must be the safety."

"Safety?" Nick asked.

She turned and looked at the men and said, "The files mentioned a genetic safety engineered in the virus, something that would ultimately give Andru Urchenko total control."

"So whoever gets injected with the virus is the head that needs to get cut off," Carter said, "but how does that give the Urchenko the reigns? He'd have to be able to get at the head."

She sighed as she set down her bag and the submachine gun, saying, "The report that detailed the incident in two thousand and three included a theory about a Plagas Master, but there was no real evidence, no trace of it, just the testimony of a victim of Las Plagas."

She took off her gloves and continued, "He said that the cult leader had total control of all those that were infected, that he could manipulate the parasitic organisms. He said that he could even manipulate the parasites to kill the host, without ever touching him."

"And you think Andru has this Master Plaga?" Carter asked.

"I think it's likely, yes," she answered.

Thom gave Karina the last of the ammo for Ibrahim's P90 and went about topping off his own mags from the ammo boxes in his go bag. As the group went about reloading, Nick walked back around to where he'd left his things. On the way he topped off the internal magazine of the M24 and refilled the .308 ammo pouch on his chest. After picking up and putting on his discarded glove he slung his shotgun, shouldered his go bag, and picked up his M24, shutting the scope caps as he picked his way past the bodies lying on the stairs on his way down to meet the others. He stopped when he reached the ground floor and saw all the bodies leading out the double front doors and around the building.

The dead included men and women, the elderly, even children. Zombie-Levi had turned the entire village to get at their group, and in the process killed them all. Nick felt numb as he gazed at the amount of lifeless bodies littered all around the church. The air was smoky and thick with the copper scent of blood as Nick walked out of the church. There was nothing in the village that remained clean, free of the stains of blood, untouched by the virus. Broken glass from shattered windows covered the streets and was ground into the arms and hands of the undead. Smoldering fires still burned in several of the houses around the village.

Nick took off his Peltor Comtac headset as he slowly walked down the street. In the aftermath of the intense firefight he could hear the sobbing and crying of survivors amongst the ruined buildings along with the crackling of structure fires and dogs barking. He was surprised that any of the villagers had managed to remain hidden and escape from the pandemonium of the undead attack. He listened to their wails and just took in all the destruction as he continued walking past the total carnage.

He kept going until he came to the body of Levi, near the town's gate. As he looked out through the gates, he saw nothing but farm fields to the south and trees to the north, with a rough dirt road separating them as it headed generally west back towards the Edonian Royal Trade Highway. The mountains south of the village stretched out to the west for a number of miles before they flattened out near the paved highway. Dark, ominous clouds were filling the sky from the south east over the hazy cloud of smoke that hung over the village.

His eyes fell back on the body of Levi, his torso torn open from the multiple machine gun exit wounds that had killed him the night before. Nick knelt down, setting his sniper rifle on the bipods next to the body. There was nothing left of his skull anymore and Nick tried not to look at the gruesome carnage. He removed Levi's Beretta from the holster at his thigh and dropped the magazine. Nick cleared the weapon's chamber and stuffed the weapon and all three of the extra magazines, still full of 9mm rounds, in his go bag. He then went through the man's pockets, removing any personal effects and shoving them in his cargo pocket before he carefully removed Levi's jacket and used it to cover the mutilated mess that used to be the man's head.

As he gathered his gear and turned to head back to the church, Nick saw the priest's small dwelling completely burnt out. The timbers of the roof and frame of the house were visible through the fire and he watched as one of the beams crumbled down, breaking others as it fell. A shower of sparks rode up on the heat from the fire and disappeared in the air over the church. The flames themselves had moved on to the church and part of the roof was smoking and burning already. There were at least a dozen other homes with smoke and flames rising out of the windows and on the rooftops all over the tiny village.

Thom and the others walked out of the church, leading the handful of survivors that were left inside out past the ring of lifeless corpses. The big man waved Nick over as they stepped into the street, away from all the bodies around the church. Nick quickly strode back towards the church as the team gazed at the ring of undead surrounding the stone walls of the building. As he came up to the group, Thom nodded, then took a breath and spoke.

"We need to find a vehicle in this town that works, so we'll split up and keep in touch on two-ways. Karina, can you set up that sat com system and get in touch with someone?"

She shook her head, "It was set up on the roof of Father Mikhail's house when everything started. I didn't have time to try and get it down."

"Fuck," Thom stated as the entire group glanced at the glowing embers that used to be Father Mikhail's roof.

Carter and Marcos started to walk off and Karina turned and was heading towards the gate when Nick caught her arm and shook his head, saying, "Don't. There is nothing left of the man you knew."

He reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out the effects he had retrieved from Levi's pockets. As he handed them to her, she just stared at them for a moment, blinking back tears. She sniffed and took them, silently stuffing them in her bag.

"Stay with her," Thom told Nick as he walked off to the south to look for a vehicle.

Nick put his headset back on as Karina looked at him and said, "Thank you."

He nodded and said, "I am sorry that I had to…"

"I know," she said, "You did the right thing."

"Come on," he said, "Let's go find a car."

They took a side street off of the main road back towards the north side of the village. They carefully moved around the wreck of an old Renault truck that had crashed into a storefront near the main road. The front of the truck, up to the cab, was buried in rubble from the collapsed store and there was a body pinned underneath one of the rear tires. The windows were all smashed in and blood ran down the outside of the doors. As they passed it Nick thought he saw a body slumped over across the seat in the cab, covered in blood.

A few houses up from the wreck they found another old pickup, but it looked like it had been stripped of most of the essentials and hadn't moved from its parking spot in ages. They continued on, peeking in the broken gates and smashed doors along the side street as they went. They saw a man poke his head out of a second story window near the end of the street. When the man saw the two of them he looked relieved, then a look of concern as he noticed the weapons they were carrying. He ducked back inside quickly and hurriedly spoke to someone else inside the house.

Nick looked over at Karina, who shot him a glance and said, "I couldn't quite hear what he said."

"Try to talk to him, see if he can help us get out of here," Nick suggested, immediately realizing how stupid that sounded given what had just happened in the village. "Forget that, just let him know that it's safe now and we're not here to cause any trouble."

Karina nodded and repeated what Nick had said, speaking Romanian. They slowly moved forward when the man appeared in a doorway a few meters from them, cautiously stepping out holding an axe defensively. The simple wood splitting tool was coated in thick blood with small patches of hair stuck to it near the top of the blade. Nick and Karina kept their weapons lowered and non-threatening as they slowly took a step forward. He started speaking rapidly, obviously terrified, and Karina conversed with the older man while Nick waited.

He was dressed in wool trousers and worn leather boots with a light green shirt under a thick brown jacket. There were blood stains splattered all over his sleeves and shirt front and his bare hands were covered in dark crimson. He had blood drops in his graying black hair, short beard, and all over his cheeks. His eyes were wild and his brow was set, locked in determination.

"He said that his wife and granddaughter are upstairs," Karina translated for Nick, "but his son and daughter in law were killed by his other son, but they didn't stay dead. He had to kill both of his sons and many of his friends."

The man continued talking and Karina nodded, speaking softly, "His wife was attacked and struck by a piece of wood and is hurt, bleeding."

Nick keyed his radio, "Marcos, this is Nick. We found some survivors on the north side of town and they could use a little medical attention."

"Got it man, I'm on my way," Marcos replied, "Just guide me in."

"I'll meet you on Main Street," Nick replied and then said to Karina, "Tell him our medic is on his way and we can help his wife."

She told the old man who lowered his axe, but still didn't drop it or ease up his grip on the wooden handle. Nick started to back away and said to Karina, "I'm going to get Marcos, please be careful."

She smiled at him, just slightly, before he turned and walked to the road to lead Marcos in to where he was needed. She kept talking to the man as Nick passed the Renault and saw Marcos near the church, walking towards him. Nick waved him over and Marcos moved quickly down the cobblestone street, stepping lithely around the scattered debris and bodies.

"What's up bro?" Marcos asked as he reached Nick.

As they walked down the street Nick explained what Karina had said. They joined her and she went back and forth with the man for a few moments before he lead Marcos and Karina inside. Nick continued searching around the neighborhood for a vehicle or more survivors.


	11. Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Trapov Village, Edonia

4:13 pm September 19th, 2010

Carter's voice came over the radio, "I found some kind of school here with a locked gate and a thick wall around it. It looks like there's a large group of survivors inside, but they're freaked the fuck out and won't let me inside. They won't even talk to me."

"Good to know there are more survivors," Thom replied, "but unless they have a vehicle in there, keep on moving."

"Copy that," Carter answered.

As the men continued to search the eerie town, they realized that only a small percentage of the population had even owned a vehicle. Most of them were wrecked on the main road or on the side streets that fed onto it. The carnage was centered on the avenue leading up to the church, but there wasn't much that remained unaffected by the attack. The men passed house after house with smashed doors and windows covered in bloody smears.

Eventually, Thom got lucky and found a makeshift garage with a padlock on the large gate-like door. The walls of the structure were made of sheets of corrugated aluminum that was rusting through in several spots. Shining his flashlight in through one of the holes he saw a windshield and the dirty white hood of a small car. He smiled and put the flashlight back in his pouch before he got on the radio.

"Jackpot mates," he called, "I'm on the far eastern side of the village, near the cliffs, maybe four hundred meters south of the church."

"On my way," said Carter.

"Moving," Nick reported.

"Still working here boss," Marcos said, "Give me a few more minutes."

"Who's with Karina now?" Thom asked.

"She's right here with me, translating," Marcos told him.

"Take your time; Carter, Nick and I will see if anyone is home that will miss this car."

A few minutes later Carter and Nick were linked up with Thom in the street, just outside of a small, walled courtyard that was in front of the house that the garage was leaning against. Thom and Carter cleared the courtyard and took off their go bags, setting them near the door with Nick's bag and sniper rifle. Nick pulled the shotgun around, at the low ready, and grabbed the door handle with his left hand as his teammates signaled that they were set. He turned the handle and pushed the door in as Thom and Carter stepped in, rifles up and at the high ready with the gun lights on.

Nick flowed in behind them into a small family room with two doorways, one to the immediate right and another on the far wall, to the left side. A worn sofa sat along the front wall of the house under a large window and a pair of overturned chairs was cluttered in front of the doorway on the left. A wide bookshelf that had stood on the far wall to the right of the door had been knocked over into the middle of the room, smashed in half. The top leaned against the sofa while the bottom half was stomped and the back was broken through. There was a long trail of blood smeared on the back of the shelf, past the chairs, leading into the other room.

Thom followed the blood trail while Carter turned right. Nick followed Thom and they tossed the chairs aside and entered what appeared to have been the dining room. It was in shambles. The table was tilted, two legs broken off and the worn surface snapped in half. The chairs that had surrounded it were knocked over or broken. A small serving table along the inside wall, to their right, was smashed to pieces along with a tea set that had been on it. A china cabinet on the wall to the left was destroyed, a mangled body, with a bashed open skull, was lying inside its ruined shelves and cabinets. There was blood splattered all over the small room, covering the wrecked furniture, overturned chairs, and even smeared along the walls.

They picked their way through the mess and moved to a doorway to the right, leading into the kitchen, where they could see the beam of Carter's gun light coming from the other room to the right. They stepped inside, Thom and Carter's gun lights focused on a tangle of legs and arms lying motionless on the floor. They couldn't help but just stand there for a few moments, frozen in sorrow, staring in silence at the carnage.

It appeared to be a family, a woman, a child, and a large man that had all been turned. They were covered in blood and wounds from bites, scratches and even some clean cuts, from a knife or razor. Another body, which was completely mutilated, lay unrecognizable on the floor beneath the other three. They couldn't even tell if it had been a man or woman. The others must have just caught whoever it was when Nick killed Levi and they'd all just dropped in place.

Every part of the kitchen was covered in blood and gore. The smell was thick and overwhelming, even though a door leading out the back of the house was open, hanging off the bottom hinge. One of them must have broken in and turned the family until they all attacked the unlucky soul under the pile of corpses.

"There's a stairway right here," Carter finally said, jerking his thumb back toward the room behind him.

"I've seen enough," Thom said, "We'll just break open the carport and hotwire the fuckin' thing."

They left the house and moved back outside in front of the car port, slinging their rifles. Nick set the shotgun down with the rest of his gear and the three men grabbed the top of the gate, heaving and tearing it down. Carter and Nick dragged it out of the way, leaving it in the yard, as Thom got his flashlight back out and walked into the garage. He grasped the door handle, expecting it to be locked, but the door opened and he climbed in to look for the keys.

He climbed out moments later, saying "No keys. How about you get this thing going?"

"Just because I'm black that means I can hotwire a car?" Carter joked.

"Absolutely, now get it working," Thom said, walking past him out of the shanty car port. He got back on the radio, "Marcos, how's it looking?"

A few seconds later Marcos answered, "Just about done here boss. Karina's just trying to figure shit out with the locals. You want us to come to you?"

"No mate, Carter's hotwiring the car now, just meet us on the main road."

"That's some racist shit boss, having the black man do it," Marcos said.

"You were busy," Thom replied.

"Motherfucker," Marcos said and a second later added, "We're moving now."

Thom heard the car engine turn over and rev a few times. A moment later, Carter pulled the car out into the street and hit the trunk latch. He stepped out as the men gathered their gear from the courtyard and loaded the go bags inside. Nick put his sniper rifle in the trunk along with Thom's and Carter's M4 carbines, hanging on to his Mossberg. They shut the trunk and got in, Carter at the wheel, Thom sat in the passenger seat, and Nick sat in the back, behind Thom, with his shotgun between his knees.

Carter drove carefully down the narrow streets, doing his best to avoid the bodies and debris that littered the small village. Their car was a beaten up and slightly rusty old Volkswagen of some kind, but it handled fairly well as Carter navigated back towards the church. He didn't have any problems with the clutch or the transmission in first or second gear, but having to maneuver through the aftermath prevented him from even getting up to third gear.

They turned onto the main road and Carter had to run over a few things he thought he'd never have to run over before he reached the corner Marcos and Karina were waiting at. He stopped near the pair and hit the trunk latch as Nick got out so he could give them a hand loading their stuff in the trunk.

"Is the old lady going to make it?" Nick asked.

"Yeah, they let me stitch her up and I gave her plenty of Motrin," Marcos said as he shoved the aid bag and M79 in the car, "She'll definitely live, probably going to have some serious nightmares, but she'll be alive."

Thom grabbed the P90 he had given to Karina along with the remaining spare magazine. They climbed in the back seat, Nick behind Thom, Marcos behind Carter, and Karina between them in the back seat with her black bag and its precious contents on her lap. It was a tight fit with all the gear on their vests, belts, and strapped to their legs, but they managed.

"Where are we going today Miss Daisy?" Carter said, doing the appropriate southern black gentleman accent.

"Head towards our camp," Thom answered, pulling out his map, "We'll try and take the trails and back roads so we can stay off the highway."

"Okay," Carter said, shifting the car in gear and driving west.

As they drove away, Nick couldn't help but feel the weight of the guilt for leaving the village the way they did. It had been a normal, peaceful village that morning, probably not a bad place to live, when the sun came up, but it was now setting on graveyard. Trapov was a ruined, blood soaked husk of what it should have been and Nick felt like they were the ones responsible for it.

The storm clouds they'd seen on the horizon that afternoon soon consumed the whole sky, bringing the dark of night even sooner. As they drove, rain started to fall, slowly at first. The group heard the rumble of thunder overhead as the rain was increasing. When they reached the highway and turned south onto it the rain was pouring down in sheets as the wind picked up out of nowhere. Lightning flashed every few minutes and the time between the flash and the clap of thunder was ever decreasing. They drove in silence, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

A mile or so down the highway, Carter finally spoke, "Storm's getting worse. How far is our turn off?"

"About two more miles," Thom answered wearily, "It'll be on the right. If you cross a bridge then you've gone just past it."

The road weaved along next to a deep ravine for a few minutes before it rose over a hill. As they crested the hill a flash of lightning illuminated the stretch of road ahead of them and the group saw a major problem. The bridge Thom referred to was about a kilometer away, but blocking the road in the center of the simple bridge were two pickup trucks. They caught glimpses of men in ponchos standing behind mounted machineguns in the beds of the trucks. They all knew that their own headlights had already given them away to the enemies guarding the river crossing.

"Shit," Thom said, studying the woodline bordering the right side of the road.

"So that turn is coming up, right?" Carter asked as he let the car coast down the backside of the hill.

"I'm looking for it, just, try to slow down a little," Thom said.

As the car continued along, losing speed as they coasted, Nick and Marcos shifted their weapons, readying them in case of trouble. They fumbled in the darkness and located the handles for the windows so that they were ready to open them if they couldn't find their side road. Karina nervously peered out the windshield, unsure of what was going to happen and dreading tangling with the soldiers ahead.

"I see it!" Thom stated, pointing to the woods.

"I don't see it yet," Carter said, shifting into gear and slowly moving along.

When the lightning flashed again Thom exclaimed, "Right there!"

"I saw it," Carter said. He had to brake hard in order to make the turn and the car started to slide, hydroplaning on the washed out road. He fought the skid like a professional stunt driver and barely made the turn, bouncing off the smooth pavement and onto the rough trail. Nick watched the pickups as they started moving, their headlights on as they straightened out on the bridge and headed after them.

"Yeah, they're following us," he reported.

They lurched and bounced in the car as it rode roughly over the logging trail, bottoming out several times, as they passed into the thick forest. Between the trees the trail was narrow with small natural ditches to either side, full of swiftly flowing rainwater runoff. Carter had to decelerate and down shift to second gear in order to keep control of the car. As fine as German automobile engineering was, the little Volkswagen was definitely not made for this kind of off-road use.

Thom tried to look at the map as the car shifted and bounced over roots and through deep puddles of muddy water. The wipers were smearing the dirt and leaves across the windshield, clearing barely enough for Carter to see. Both of them were swearing in the front seat as Nick, Karina, and Marcos kept looking out the rear window. Behind them, the headlights of the pickup trucks turned onto the trail. A few moments later they entered the forest and the gunner in the bed of the first truck started firing his PKM.

His rounds sprayed wildly as he fought to stand in place while the pickup bounced over the rough trail. The team saw the tracers sailing in every direction around and above them. Karina tried to duck down, clutching her bag in her left arm and tightly gripping Nick's left leg with her right.

"We'll cross a creek and then the trail makes a hard right," Thom announced loudly, "We hit the turn, kill the lights and hit 'em when they come around. Nick and Marcos, you guys frag 'em and I'll get the artillery."

Seconds later the creek came into view and Carter said, "There's no bridge!"

"Nope!" Thom agreed.

Carter gunned the engine and the car accelerated as rounds struck the trees to the right side of their car. Chips of bark and slivers of woods stuck to Thom and Nick's windows from the impacting rounds. Marcos frantically fought to buckle his seat belt and Nick pressed his right hand against the roof, bracing himself as the car picked up speed. He wrapped his left arm around Karina's shoulders and held her tightly as the car tires slammed through the puddles and into roots and rocks sticking out of the ground.

The creek ran over the trail ahead, which had created a wide ditch that was full of flowing water and debris. Carter knew that if he tried to roll through it slowly they'd get bogged down, lose traction, and wind up helplessly stuck in the stream. The only way they'd make it is if he could build enough speed that their momentum would carry them through it. He slammed on the gas pedal and gripped the steering wheel with all his strength.

"Hold on!" he yelled.

The car hit a small rut, just before the road dipped down into the water, and went airborne. Carter had the presence of mind to take his foot off the accelerator and push in the clutch. They were all swearing as the simple, old Volkswagen tilted forward in mid air, all four tires spinning off the ground. The front bumper struck the lip on the far side of the creek before the tires hit the earth, just above the water line. The front end bounced up as the momentum kept propelling the car forward and the rear tires slammed in almost the same spot, the rear fender splashing in the creek. The car continued moving as the front end came back down, bouncing as they settled, still rolling along.

Carter let off the clutch slightly as he gave it gas and the tires caught traction in the mud of the rough trail. The rear end skidded from side to side as Carter fought to bring the car back under his control. More machinegun fire chewed up the trees and trail behind them. A few rounds struck the back of the car, knocking out a tail light and striking the trunk.

"God damn it!" Thom shouted. He rolled down his window and half turned in his seat to thrust the P90 out, aiming generally to the rear. He fired a few short bursts and Marcos followed his lead, firing out his window behind Carter. They kept trading quick bursts, keeping the gunner from firing again.

"Curve's coming up!" Carter called out.

He put the car in neutral, killed the lights, and turned off the ignition. As the first trailing pickup bounded over the ditch, nearly throwing their gunner from the bed, Carter coasted the Volkswagen skillfully around the curve. As the car slowed to a stop, all four men opened their doors and got out while Karina sat, bewildered. Carter and Thom pushed the car along in neutral, keeping its momentum.

Nick pulled the frag grenades from the pouches at his sides and handed one of them to Marcos. They ripped the tape securing the pins and flicked the safety clip off of the spoons. As the headlights of the lead truck lit the curve behind them both of them pulled the pins and got ready to throw.

Just as the front of the first pickup came into view Nick threw his grenade. The spoon flipped off as the grenade sailed and struck a hard packed section of the trail, skidding off to the left side of the road. After a two count, Marcos threw his and they both dove into the mud behind trees along the side of the road. Marcos's grenade plopped into a puddle in the center of the road a few meters in closer than where Nick's had landed.

The lead truck fishtailed wildly around the curve and the driver was still fighting to control the vehicle when Nick's grenade exploded on the edge of the trail. Shrapnel blew out the front right side tire and peppered the passenger side with steaming holes. The gunner was thrown down in the bed of the truck, screaming in pain. The driver instinctively turned away from the blast, right over the puddle in which Marcos's grenade had landed when it went off.

The front end of the pickup was launched up and the tire on the driver's side was blown off into the trees, rim and all. The hood flipped off the truck and bits of vital engine parts were tossed into the air, smoking like bottle rockets. The windshield and windows shattered, flying around the cab with the pink mist of blood from the driver as the overpressure caused blood vessels near his skin to burst. The body of the gunner in the back flipped a few times as he was thrown into the mud behind the wreckage of the truck, which lurched to the right and came down in the ditch on its passenger side.

The driver of the second truck panicked at the sound of the explosions and mistakenly punched the accelerator instead of the brakes as he came into the curve. He quickly tried to correct his error, slamming on the brakes, which locked up the front tires and threw him into a full on skid. He slid through the curve completely out of control. He cranked the wheel to the right, trying to fight the skid, but he hit the ditch on the outside of the curve nearly sideways. The wheels caught in the deep rut and pitched the truck up on the front left tire.

The cab smashed into a tree, crushing it and shattering the glass of the windows. The gunner tried to leap from the truck, but didn't clear the bed before it flipped up and he was catapulted from the bed and into the trees of the forest, smashing into a thick truck with a sickening thud. The truck settled on its side with its cab wrapped around the tree.

Marcos and Nick stood up ready to fire, but Thom shouted, "Clear the way mates!"

They turned to run back to the car where Thom was standing behind the open trunk with his M4 in hand. The huge man reached around the magazine, took aim, and fired a 40mm grenade at the underside of the first truck. It detonated the fuel tank and caused a massive, Hollywood-like, fiery explosion. The ball of flame and smoke rose into the night illuminating the trees eerily before it died down into a thick plume of smoke over the flames of burning tires. The rain hissed as it hit the heated metal wreckage.

Thom opened the breech, letting the smoking casing fall in the mud, and picked another round out of a pouch on his body armor. He loaded it in the tube, closed it, and fired it at the second truck, causing another spectacular explosion. The three men stood in the mud, soaking in the cold rain, with huge grins on their faces, just watching the flames. Carter slammed his hand on the roof of the car before he got in and the three men turned to go. As Thom laid his M4 back in the truck he pointed at a bullet hole through the lid.

"They killed our spare, boys," he said.


	12. Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

Edonian Wilderness

22 Miles south of the capital, Antrusia

6:20 pm September 19th, 2010

Thom shut the trunk and they all got back into the little car, sopping wet, but pleased with the outcome of their encounter. Carter started the engine and they continued driving up the trail, moving slowly along the rough terrain. Thom turned the heater on and a minute later the windows were fogging up, so they all lowered them an inch or two, letting in the cold stormy air.

The lightning and thunder were nearly simultaneous now, flashing blindingly bright as the clap of thunder drowned out all other noise. The rain poured down heavily, deteriorating the trail into a muddy canal through the woods. The ditches on either side were overflowing into the center, forming one wide flowing stream. It wouldn't be long before the little car was bogged down and they would have to move on foot.

After riding in silence for half a mile or so, Nick spoke up, "So, what's the plan?"

"Well, I imagine we'll have to hoof it over the coming ridge to the camp," Thom began, vocalizing what everyone dreaded doing, which was going back out into the rain, "and then we can get on Satcom and call in anything and everything available."

"What I meant was," Nick continued, "are we going after Urchenko ourselves or are we going to wait until someone believes what we have to say?"

Karina spoke up, "The B.S.A.A. will coordinate getting the necessary forces here to deal with the Urchenkos, but it will take time; time we don't have. The longer he remains free to build his forces and infect civilians, the more difficult it will be to stop him."

The men waited for Thom to respond, deferring to his leadership. After a few moments he finally said, "Our contract is to aid the government of Edonia and help their forces handle this insurgent rebellion, not take on an army of zombies. This is way out of our scope here."

"I told you, there is a B.S.A.A. tactical team, our Special Operations Unit, on its way," Karina said, "They will take over the operation once they arrive."

"It would take one ballsy pilot to land in this weather," Carter said, "I'll bet they don't fly until this storm breaks. We'd be on our own for a couple days, at least."

"There are only five of us, sweetie," Thom explained, "Andru Urchenko had an army before he could turn regular folks into zombies and control them. He turned that village against us in a matter of hours, so just imagine what he's got waiting for us now. Even with our militia it would be suicidal to try moving against him."

"Please, at least help me get these viral samples to the capitol," she pleaded, "I will brief the S.O.U. when they arrive and you can do what you like after that."

"We've been trying to get to our own camp for the last twenty four hours and have seen more shit than I've ever come across in my entire life!" Thom exclaimed, "Getting back to Antrusia is going to be a suicide mission."

Carter broke in before Karina could speak again, saying, "Look, we can assess the situation when we get back to our camp; see if we can figure out where else he's used the virus and how bad things are."

"You said there were two more cases," Marcos remarked, "Are you sure that was all of it?"

She nodded, "That was all Dr. Leukin sent with the agent who smuggled it through Ukrainia."

"So, since we took out zombie-Levi at the village, they've got five more people able to create an army of undead, at the most, correct?" He asked.

"At most, yes," she began, "but I believe one of the cases held a sample of Plagas Master, so that Andru could manipulate his sub commanders. That would leave four vials of Las Plagas Major."

"So we just track down four more zombie armies, take out their commanders, and then hunt down the warlord we were originally here to help fight," Nick stated, "No sweat."

"Sure," Marcos said, "Five of us, plus our seventy-nine local fighters at the camp versus all the soldiers Andru already had fighting for him along with whatever part of the population he can turn into bloodthirsty, undead slaves."

"When you say it like that," Carter said, "it only sounds kind of impossible."

"Does the B.S.A.A. have any more muscle they can flex, or just a single team?" Nick asked.

"What does that mean?" Karina asked, confused by the statement.

"What kind of military power can they bring to the fight once they get word of how bad this is?" Nick clarified.

"The S.O.U. will have armored vehicles and heavy weaponry. Other teams are already mobilizing around the globe, but it may take a couple of days to organize them and bring them in along with enough support personnel from NATO forces to supply them and provide communications and control. Our European branches have a small fleet of helicopters in our organization, but more air power and heavier support will come from the NATO forces. I have no idea how long that would take to arrive and be ready to fight."

"We'll contact your superiors first thing when we get to the camp," Thom said, "and then we figure out our next move."

They rode in silence as Carter struggled to keep the little car on the rugged forest road that had degraded into a stream in the pouring rainstorm. Thom guided him onto a slightly wider road that was less rough. He said that it led to the base of the ridge that was just south of their camp and that they could leave the car and hike over the steep hill. None of them were too eager to get back out in the storm, but going around the ridge was too risky, as it would bring them closer to the highway and, possibly, more patrols looking for them.

The storm raged as they continued generally north. The Volkswagen's windshield wipers were worn and old, barely clearing enough water for Carter to see the road ahead. Flashes of lightning gave them brief glimpses of the bleak, wet forest around them. They could see the angry bolts of lightning crackle across the sky, striking all around them. The accompanying thunder was instantaneous and deafening as they approached what had to be the center of the storm cell.

The road eventually intersected another trail running basically east to west. As the lighting flashed once more they saw the trees rising high up along the side of the ridgeline to the north, beyond which was their destination. They were nearly there.

"Take a left here," Thom said, "Another five hundred meters or so and there's a saddle in the ridgeline where one of our OP's should be at."

Carter turned onto the trail slowly and drove until he saw the low point in the ridge. He stopped the car, turned off the lights, and shut off the engine. They sat in silence with the rain beating down on the car, looking at the ominous forest as lightning flashed in the thick clouds. No one was overly anxious to step out of the car just yet.

"Anybody else getting a bad vibe right now?" Marcos asked.

The question hung in the stuffy, humid air of the car before Thom said, "It's just the storm fucking with you. Let's get this over with."

They got out as Carter hit the trunk latch and within seconds they were completely soaked. Wearing just his plate carrier over his cotton T-shirt, Nick was chilled to the bone almost immediately. He grabbed the PVS-22 night vision sight to attach it to the rail of his sniper rifle before he shouldered his pack, slung the shotgun, and prepared to move. When everyone had retrieved all of their gear they shut the trunk and left the car in the trail.

They quietly followed Thom off the road and into the woods on foot. The ground was firm under the trees, but all of the fallen leaves made it slippery and difficult to climb as they ascended the steep slope. Each of them slid and fell to their hands and knees more than once. While he usually felt it was worth carrying a long gun, Nick was cursing his sniper rifle's awkward weight as he climbed the hill in the wind and rain. He had to catch himself with on hand or try to turn and land on his side when he started to slip in order to keep the rifle and scope out of the mud.

Ahead of the others, Thom stopped and whispered into his radio, "I think I can make out the OP, but I don't think anyone is manning it right now. Let's take it real slow."

They crept up to the position, trying to signal the men who should have been on watch by flashing a predetermined pattern of lights, but there was no response after several attempts. They tried continuously as they moved closer, crawling up the ridge in the cold rain. As they approached the OP, which was just a foxhole dug into the hillside, lined with sandbags and a makeshift log and poncho roof, they found it empty. The poncho was sagging under all the water weight, dumping into the completely mud filled hole. There were no signs of any guards nearby at all. They looked at each other before everyone looked to Thom.

"How about now?" Marcos asked, raising his voice over the wind and rain, "Anyone else getting that bad feeling yet?"

"They probably just went back to camp when they got flooded out," Thom proclaimed, "I wouldn't stay here in that shit. Would you?"

"I guess," Marcos answered uneasily.

Something else was bothering Nick. He had selected the positions for the Observation Post's around the camp, making sure they were far enough out that they would provide early warning, but close enough for the guards to easily signal the camp. They were all on high ground around the camp, which sat in a bowl in the hills, with a single road to the east that a vehicle could access. From each OP he should have been able to see the faint lights of the camp below and hear the generators running. There was nothing in the low ground beyond but darkness and the sound of pouring rain, along with the rumbles of thunder.

"Let's get down to the camp," Thom directed before he turned and started moving.

They all crested the saddle and started descending down the other side. In the flashes of lightning, Nick could make out the tents and structures, but couldn't tell if there was any movement. He wasn't going to say it out loud, but he was getting a very bad feeling, like Marcos had been saying earlier.

When they got to the base of the hill they skirted east alongside it, trying to keep a safe distance away from the camp. They travelled parallel to the outer perimeter, which was simply a ten foot high earthen berm with concertina and barbed wire running over it. They also knew that there were trip wire flares and mines buried around the grounds, with safe passage through only a few unmarked lanes. The safest way to approach, to avoid getting shot up by their own partner forces' sentries, was for the group to make their way around to the road leading in the front gate on the east side.

As they moved cautiously Nick continued to watch, when he could, for any signs of movement from within the camp, but the rain made it difficult to see very far or notice movement. It made everything seem to move constantly and he tried to convince himself that everything was fine. His hand drifted to the grip of his pistol in his holster in spite of himself.

They finally curved north and made their way out of the tree line onto the road leading into the small camp. The gate was open and completely unobstructed, which was out of the ordinary. They had the militia fighters use simple vehicle barricades, chains, and more concertina wire to secure the road leading in, but all of it was out of place with no vehicles in the camp at all, not even their third humvee. Plywood guard shacks, reinforced with double thick layered sandbags on the outside, stood to either side of road, just inside the gate. There wasn't a man in sight. The group walked slowly up the center of the road, in full view of the camp, and yet they were completely unchallenged.

"Now I've got a very bad feeling," Thom said as he tightened his grip on his M4, bringing the stock to his shoulder.

The storm continued to rage as they walked through the gate into the camp. The road continued straight, to the western side of the camp, which they referred to as the Hazmat section. It was where the generators, fuel tank, and ammunition containers were separated from the main camp by five foot square Hesco bastions, stacked two high. The simple cloth and hard wire barriers were filled with dirt and rocks and created a wall of earth to shield the camp from any direct damage, should their fuel or ammunition containers ever get hit and explode. They were further separated within the Hazmat section with barriers between each ammo storage container on the north side and an offset entrance to the 5,000 gallon fuel tank and generators on the south side, which was their Powerplant. The idea was to prevent sympathetic detonation should any single container, the tank, or one of the generators get hit.

Lining the sides of the road in the main portion of the camp were two parallel rows of the five foot square Hesco bastions, creating a blast wall enclosure to prevent a car bomb from taking out the whole camp. The large parking area in the center had openings in the blast wall, off to either side, for the men to walk through. Barriers were placed just inside of the openings, a few feet off the blast wall, to keep shrapnel from flying into the living and working areas. The only building with an opening directly on the road was the med shed, which had thick, steel doors and simple trapdoor style blast wall that could be lowered in an emergency. The thick sheet of heavy steel could be lifted with a winch from the roof of the solid, brick and mortar med shed. It was the most hardened building on the camp and they referred to it most times as the Alamo, as it would be the last building to fall if they were ever attacked and overrun.

On the north side of the central road was the main living and working area for the local militia forces. A couple of tents were set up for living space while the men were constructing a more permanent barracks structure of brick and mortar in the south east corner. Once that was complete, they were supposed take down the tent barracks and build another hard structure on the north side in its place. In addition to the barracks tent, there was a chow hall tent, a wood framed latrine, and a couple of simple guard towers looking over the outer walls.

Near the center of the camp, was a centuries old stone building that had collapsed in on itself. The team, along with their local counterparts, had done a solid job of repairing it and putting a new roof on the building. It wasn't quite completed, but they used it as the Operations Center for the camp while they worked on it. Their mission planning and training had taken place inside the OPCEN, which they all called the Farmhouse.

Just past the Farmhouse was the water tower, which was another 5,000 gallon tank on a thirty foot tall steel tower that held water pumped from the old well below it, to provide decent gravity water pressure to the camp. The steel legs of the tower surrounded the old stones of the ancient, simple well, which they had to dig much farther down into in order to get clean water. To the north and west of the water tower were four shipping containers, each specially designed living quarters for half of the DSG team members. The other half lived on the south side of the camp, behind the med shed in four more Connex containers.

The containers were built to be used as stand-alone structures for temporary dwelling. The interior of each was set up exactly the same. Each had a cot along one wall that could fold up, out of the way when it wasn't being used, with small storage bins beneath that were packed with some food, water, and ammo. A tall locker stood near the door and was used for weapons, clothing, and personal gear. A small desk was built into the wall across from the cot with built in lines for connecting secure satellite communications, via radio or computer. Small cabinets along the wall above the desk held more supplies. In the back was a very small latrine, with a toilet, sink, and cramped shower stall. It felt like an airplane restroom with a shower.

Accessible through a panel in the back of the container was a utility panel, where a small generator, battery bank, water heater, and the air circulation and conditioning system were located. A smaller panel on the outside housed the input lines for water, fuel, electricity, communications lines, and external antennae arrays. The containers were designed to function off of external supply, primarily, and internal storage for very short durations. They allowed DSG members to become immediately operational and to operate efficiently for long periods of time anywhere they could access fuel, electricity, and water. Each of the deployed members of the team were also trained to maintain the utilities of the containers themselves, making each man self-reliant and capable of operating without the need for extra support personnel.

As the group walked into the center of the camp the first thing they noticed was the quiet. They should have been able to hear one of the generators running over the rain and wind, but they were silent. The men noticed the eerie stillness as they stood in the mud and looked at the camp, where nothing was moving. With each flash of lighting they caught snapshots of an empty camp. Guard towers with no guards. The burn barrels outside of the barracks tent had long been extinguished and abandoned. Not even the glow of heating stoves in the tents. The camp was deserted, a ghost town.

"Carter, Nick, check the tents and Farmhouse," Thom said, gesturing to their right, "Marcos, we'll check the med shed."

Nick and Carter passed through the chest high blast wall and approached the soaked canvas barracks tent first. Nick set the sniper rifle on the barrier as he passed it, drawing his pistol as they moved to the opening. They swung the flap open and stepped in, turning on their gun lights as they moved, and quickly scanned the interior for threats. The bunk beds that normally lined the interior were in total disarray. Some were knocked over, others were pushed out of place in a heap towards the rear of the tent, and others were completely smashed. The table and chairs in the center were overturned and thrown all over the tent. Crates, boxes, footlockers, and gear were crushed and scattered among the rest of the mess.

And there was blood, lots of blood, splattered and smeared everywhere and on everything. The sickening smell made Nick instantly think of the house they had cleared in Trapov, where they had procured the Volkswagen. It was like a mass murder scene inside the tent. There were bullet holes ripped through the canvas tent walls all over. Shell casings and empty magazines nearly covered the muddy, blood soaked floor. There were fingers and bits of skin and bone sprayed all over the tent, but there wasn't a single body inside.

Nick got on the radio, "There's nothing here but a blood covered mess. I think they were attacked like we were, except there are no bodies in here."

Thom answered, "Same shit here in the med shed, a fuckin' bloodbath."

As Nick and Carter stepped out of the tent into the raging storm lightning flashed somewhere very close and the booming thunderclap shook the ground. They walked across the gravel path beneath a gnarled old tree and opened the wooden door to the Farmhouse. The plywood interior was riddled with bullet holes and blood splatter. A thick trail of blood led through an inner door to the smaller communications and intelligence room, passing over the broken down door. They shined their gun lights inside and saw a pile of bones and gore. Shuddering, Nick just turned and walked out of the ancient building. As cold and wet as he was, he could not stand inside with that smell; he needed to get to fresh air.

"See if the Connexes are still secure, then we'll see if we can get the gennies up," Thom directed over the radio.

Nick looked back at Carter who just nodded his head in the direction of the Connexes as he stepped out of the Farmhouse. They walked around the west side of the old stone building and past the water tower as lightning flashed just to the north of the camp, the thunder making the ground tremble once again. The containers were split into pairs on the north side of the camp, with two facing south, two facing east, and an empty guard tower along the wall between them. Three of them housed Thom, Ibrahim, and Carter, mainly because they were the closest to the Farmhouse and those three team members did most of the planning with the militia. The last one was empty, awaiting the arrival of whoever would serve as the team's Engineer or Mechanic. They found the containers chained and locked, as they had left them the night before. The exteriors were dented from bullet strikes, but it didn't appear that anyone had tried to break in by shooting at the locks or chains themselves. They all appeared to be random shots.

Carter started to dig out his keys to open the giant padlocks as Nick surveyed the ground around them. He could see more empty magazines left in the mud and see more spent brass on the gravel paths. He was sure the ground was soaked with blood, diluted by the rain that was pouring down. Lightning struck a tree just outside of the main gate, on the edge of the road. In the aftermath of the tremendous thunderclap, he heard the creaking and snapping of a massive tree collapsing. In subsequent flashes of lightning he could watch it fall across the road like it was being lit by a strobe. It seemed that the storm was centered on their small group, as if they didn't have enough troubles already.

As Carter was just about to throw open the latches for his container, Marcos came over the radio, "Guys, you need to see this; Jeff's container is already open."


	13. Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

Camp Kent, Edonia

20 Miles south of the capital, Antrusia

9:14 pm September 19th, 2010

Nick and Carter passed through the blast wall and linked up with Thom and Karina on their way past the med shed. The four of them passed through the southern blast wall to join Marcos on the south side of the camp. Four DSG Connex containers were lined up along the south wall of the camp, between two old pine trees, with the doors facing north. To the west were the generators on the other side of the double stacked Hesco wall and farther past the gennies was the fuel tank. On the other side of the containers, to the east, was the med shed. Marcos's container was the closest to the side door of the med shed, with Nick's next to his, then Jeff's, and an empty container awaiting the other team member on the end near the Powerplant.

The locks were on the ground, along with the fallen chains, and the door was cracked open, like it had been shut, but not latched at all. Marcos was holding one of the padlocks, brushing mud off of it until he cleaned it well enough to show the others that it hadn't been broken and that the key was still in it. He looked at the others questioningly and knew that they were all wondering the same thing. _Had Jeff survived the firefight on the road? If so, had he made it back to camp before or after the attack that had occurred there?_

Thom sniffed and grabbed the handles, swinging the large door open. He drew his pistol and stepped up to turn the knob of the smaller door set in the interior wall; glancing back to make sure someone had his back. Marcos was there with his MP5A2 over Thom's giant shoulder and they moved as one. Thom threw the door open and they moved inside, quickly clearing the cramped living area and tiny bathroom.

"Clear!" Thom called out, holstering his Glock 21, "Marcos, see if there's any juice in the battery. If not, we'll have to get the generators going."

"Sure," Marcos said, dropping his aid bag and weapons on the floor near the panel before he opened it and began fiddling with the control box.

"What is it?" Carter asked, stepping up into the container.

"He left us a message," Thom said, shining his flashlight on the desk.

An arrow had been painted on the desk in dark red blood, pointing to the open Toughbook laptop on the desk. There were more bloody handprints smeared along the walls, leading to the bathroom, where they found the sink coated with blood and bile and the mirror smashed. Thom closed the door and shook his head. He could only imagine what had happened to Jeff, but it seemed as though he was severely wounded and had returned to the camp, finding it deserted in the aftermath of a bloody attack.

Nick shivered outside; standing still in the cold rain as lightning flashed and thunder shook the hinges of the open container door. He looked back at Karina who had a hard look of concern on her face.

"No power boss," Marcos reported a moment later. Carter tried to boot the computer off of its battery, but it too, was dead.

"Marcos, grab Nick and get the power plant running. Carter and I are going to set the barricades up at the gate so we don't get any surprises," Thom directed, "Karina, you can stay with me."

She nodded and followed Thom and Carter to the gate. Nick and Marcos opened their containers and tossed in their go bags. Marcos left his grenade launcher sitting on his aid bag and Nick set his shotgun inside, meaning to pick up his M24 off the barricade on the way back from starting the generators. They walked back out of the blast wall and through the open gate to the Hazmat section. It was just wide enough to back a truck in to refuel their tank or drop off ammo and supplies. Another flash of lightning made Nick freeze in place. He saw smooth green lines running through the mud, leading over the far western berm to the ammo containers and to the fuel tank. He recognized the detonation cord and his instincts took over.

He grabbed Marcos as he darted back, hauling his friend out of the Hazmat section, yelling "Get down!"

They stumbled and slid about five steps away in the mud when they heard the loud snap of the det cord blowing. An instant later they were thrown forward off their feet by the concussive shock wave of a massive explosion, the first of a short chain. Each of the ammo containers was blown along with the fuel tank, nearly, but not quite, simultaneously. A massive fireball erupted into the sky from the burning fuel as the 5,000 gallon tank disintegrated into searing, red hot shrapnel that fizzled through the sky. The sandbags piled on top of the ammo containers were blown into the night sky, becoming a heavy cloud of dirt that fell to the earth with the rain in muddy droplets. The force of the blasts destroyed the Hesco walls, knocking over the double stack on the north side of the camp. Shards of metal and debris were thrown everywhere at supersonic velocity. While the separation of the containers would have done its job if any one container had exploded, all three blowing at once devastated the compound.

The northwest guard tower and central water tower absorbed the blast, crumpling and ripping the steel legs out of the moorings. The guard tower just broke into pieces as it fell across the concertina and barbed wire over the berm, seting off trip flares and a few of the anti-personnel mines buried in the dirt. The water tower tipped over, dropping the tank directly onto the Farmhouse as the legs folded and collapsed onto the blast wall. The deteriorated Farmhouse crumbled as the tank smashed through the roof and the weight and pressure of all the water displacing blew out the walls. The old stone building was utterly destroyed.

Shards of hot shrapnel rained down over the camp like a part of the rainstorm as Nick and Marcos slid through the mud in the main drive. Neither man could hear anything but the intense ringing in their ears, deafened in spite of the hearing protection both of them wore. They tried to open their eyes, but mud caked their faces. Their breathing was labored, as their lungs had absorbed some of the overpressure of the blast. Nothing seemed to work right as Nick tried to reach up and wipe mud from his face, only managing to get his hand up to his chin. The disorientation became dizziness and he fought to keep from passing out. The flash of another lightning bolt seemed to last for minutes as the agony made time nearly stop.

Both men struggled to their knees, crawling forward, closer to the blast wall as water from the fallen tower flooded through the muddy road. The raining shrapnel seared through their clothes as they inched forward. The burning pain ignited all at once and Nick rolled in the mud, writhing to put out the fire. He was vaguely aware that he was screaming in pain and that Marcos was nearby, doing the same thing. Then he felt hands drag him to a sitting position against the blast wall. He felt the mud being wiped away from his face and rapidly blinked his eyes in the rain to clear them. The hazy picture he first saw began to clear up and he recognized Karina's face. She was yelling at him, but she sounded like she was at the other end of a long tunnel. He began to breathe more regularly and looked over at Marcos, still in the mud, at which point she turned to aid him.

Nick began running his hands over his face and scalp, searching for injuries that hadn't registered. He found several burns along the backs of his bare arms and a couple on his legs. The rear armor plate he wore had protected his back from burns, but he was sure the hydration bladder had more than a few holes in it. After a few minutes, his senses started to clear and he could hear Karina's voice, but it was drowned out by another loud noise, like more thunder but faster. When the realization came that it was gunfire, he cleared up, like a switch had been thrown. He needed to fight to survive.

He staggered upright, leaning on the blast wall as Karina looked over at him, shouting "Are you okay?"

He could hardly hear her, but he nodded and looked towards the main gate, seeing the muzzle flashes of a lot of guns. They were under attack from armed enemy forces. Another flash of lightning revealed Thom and Carter, using the openings in the blast wall as covered fighting positions, returning fire. He watched Thom launch a 40mm grenade and saw it strike their third, missing gun truck, which had crashed against the tree that had fallen across the road outside the camp. It was a spectacular shot, striking the gunner in the turret, which had been clumsily operating the M240B. The man disappeared in a cloud of pink mist.

Nick rolled over the southern blast wall and fell in the mud in front of his Connex. He became aware of the ricocheting rounds, striking the Alamo nearby and could hear them hitting the metal containers. He stumbled into his room and retrieved his shotgun before going back to the wall where Marcos and Karina were taking cover.

"I'm going across to the other side to back up Thom and get my long gun," he told them, "You guys swing around the Alamo and lock it down."

Karina looked at Marcos, both of them tightening their grips on their respective submachine guns. They both nodded and got to their feet, Marcos still staggering uneasily. Nick nodded to Marcos and locked eyes with Karina. He tried to say something but couldn't before a stream of rounds sprayed the mud in the road nearby. They all reacted by moving with a purpose. Nick sprinted across the muddy lane and leaped, rolling over the top of the blast wall and landing on his feet on the north side of it. He picked his way past the wreckage of the fallen water tower and over the rubble of the Farmhouse as rounds struck the Hesco barriers alongside him.

He ducked behind the barrier as he ran, crouching as low as he could, until he made his way to where he'd left his M24. The gunfire increased in intensity and Nick heard Thom launch another grenade, shouting that he was already down to his last mag. Over the gunfire, wind, and rain, he heard Carter shout on the radio.

"They are all infected! Headshots! Make 'em count!"

Nick scanned to make sure there was no flanking maneuver coming over the north wall before he slung the Mossberg and stood up to get behind his long gun. He flipped open the scope caps and switched on the night sight, trying to keep his silhouette down as low as possible. The barrier was high enough that he could lean against it and just lay the rifle across the top, exposing as little of himself as possible in order to shoot. Instinctively he began regulating his breathing and starting searching for targets.

He picked out a small cluster of men behind the gun truck, all reloading their AK-47's. The infection robbed them of some of their fine motor skills, so it was taking each of them a little longer to manipulate their weapons. He also noticed that they didn't adhere to too much of their tactical training, probably because they were relatively new to it. A flash of lightning washed out his reticle with white light, and then it faded to black before slowly returning to normal. He lined up his target and pressed the trigger, pleased to watch two of the infected men collapse as his round passed through both of their skulls.

He kept lining up shots and dropping infected, as fast as he could work the bolt action. They were only fifty to a hundred meters away from him and none of the zombies were too concerned about finding covered positions or covering each other's movement, which made it a pretty simple chore for him. He went through the six rounds he'd loaded and dropped behind cover to reload from his chest pouch as fast as he could. He saw Marcos and Carter on the south side of the drive, one firing while the other covered the flank and trading responsibilities to reload. Carter was still in the blast wall opening and Marcos was in the Alamo doorway. He couldn't see Karina and figured she was probably inside the Alamo.

"I'm out of five-five-six!" Thom yelled, loading one of his last two grenades.

He launched it at a group of zombies scrambling over the berm north of the gate, sending a pair of them sailing back off the mound, flipping end over end until they crumpled in the mud. He quickly reloaded the M203 with the last of his 40mm HEDP rounds as Nick stood back up and began going to work, picking off targets as swiftly as he could, aiming for the farthest stragglers that he could and letting Carter and Marcos take down those closer in.

Marcos came over the radio, "Watch your backs guys! Karina is holding off a flanking assault over the south berm here!"

After his final headshot, Nick dropped back down to reload again and scanned the north berm, spotting a few zombies stuck in concertina wire at the top of the berm while some managed to stumble down the steep, muddy barrier. He jammed the mag of his M24 as fast as he could, hearing Thom fire his last 40mm grenade back at the main gate of the camp. The big man was down to his pistol now, so Nick ran over to him with the shotgun.

"Thought you could use this boss," he yelled over the noise of the storm and battle, handing him the Mossberg, "I'll clear the gate. There were some stragglers coming over the north wall. They're all yours."

Thom slung his smoking rifle and nodded his thanks as he grabbed the Mossberg and took off running past the rubble of the Farmhouse. Nick heard the shotgun boom between thunderclaps and took up position where Thom had been firing over the blast wall. Now that Thom was behind him, a whole new lane of fire was opened up for Nick, and he eagerly went to work, dropping zombie after zombie. He dropped to reload again and looked over at Carter.

"I'm out too!" Carter yelled holding up his last empty mag.

The barrel of Carter's M4 was smoking and steaming in the rain, so he unslung it and left it leaning up against the Hesco, drawing his Sig. The gunfire was starting to die down, around the camp. Nick could hear pistol fire from behind the Alamo and see Marcos inside swinging his empty MP5A2 around his back and drawing his USP 45 pistol. Thom had gone through all six shot shells in the mag and was reloading the Mossberg from the side saddle. Nick stood back up and rapidly took six more easy head shots.

The air was filled with the smell of cordite and blood. Nick stayed in place to reload the last two rounds from his chest pouch, as there wasn't any real threat to take cover from anymore. The only zombies left in his field of view were missing limbs or had no weapons; they were just shambling forward in the mud. He jammed four more rounds into the mag from the buttstock pouch as he and Carter nodded to each other. Thom gave an all clear for the north side over the radio, but it was choked off at the end before they heard a ripping noise followed immediately by a loud crash. Then there was more gunfire and it was accurate.


	14. Chapter 13

CHAPTER 13

Camp Kent, Edonia

20 Miles south of the capital, Antrusia

9:54 pm September 19th, 2010

Nick saw the muzzle flashes to his left out of the corner of his eye, just as the rounds started slamming into the Hesco barrier he was leaning against, only inches away from his armpit. He rolled to his right and got behind the barrier, sitting in the mud in the open central lane. Marcos started returning fire from across the camp, calling for Nick to move, but the shooter kept firing, changing his point of aim to the Alamo doorway where Marcos stood. The medic was forced to duck back behind the wall as half a dozen rounds snapped through the doorway and slammed into the back wall of the med shed.

Nick thought about making a desperate all out sprint across the drive and heading for the back side of the Alamo, but decided against it. Instead, he drew his pistol and started firing blindly over the barrier. He kept pumping rounds in the shooter's general direction as he stood up. He got eyes on the figure, walking down the inside of the berm as he emptied his mag at it. He slammed the pistol in his holster and instantly switched to the rifle, bringing the reticle on his target in a heartbeat. The shooter was reloading a pistol as he walked towards Nick, just extending it out to fire when Nick broke his shot. Amazingly, the zombie seemed to shift to his right with unnatural speed and the heavy round ripped through the creature's shoulder. It caused the thing to falter a step and his first volley of shots went low and to Nick's right side.

Nick racked the bolt and fired again, as fast as he was able to. His second round struck the creature in the middle of its chest and he watched it stumble backwards a step or two before it righted itself. Again, Nick racked the bolt, even faster this time, and broke another shot just as he pushed the knob down, locking the chamber. As the third round struck the zombie's collar bone it picked up speed, running towards him, shooting up the barrier just in front of Nick.

He ducked as dirt and mud sprayed the glass of his scope. He dropped the rifle and simultaneously drew his empty 1911 and a full magazine from his subload. In a flash of well rehearsed motion, he dropped the empty mag and slammed the replacement in while he scooted along the wall towards the main gate of the camp. His left hand racked the slide, chambering a round as he moved. The freakishly agile zombie leapt over the blast wall and came down in the mud, turning in the air to aim at Nick as it landed, but was illuminated by a gun light from the south side just before it was hit with a series of shots that ripped through its arm and shoulder, causing it to drop its weapon in the mud. Carter stood across the muddy drive, hammering the zombie with fast, accurate shots, but wasn't quite able to nail it in the head. It twitched and weaved too quickly.

The thing turned to face the new threat and, in the light, Carter recognized the face. It made him hesitate a second as he shouted, "It's Jeff!"

It leaped at Carter, catching his pistol just as he fired, forcing his aim down. The round slammed into Jeff's hip without noticeably affecting him in the least bit. His cold hands blocked the action, causing Carter's Sig to stovepipe, neutralizing the gun temporarily. It pulled, yanking Carter in quickly and then reversed, swiftly punching him in the chest with both hands. Carter was knocked off his feet, backwards over the Hesco wall and was sent tumbling into the mud between the med shed and the construction of the new barracks on the southeast side of the camp.

Nick stood up to fire, but Jeff grabbed the hot muzzle of Carter's empty rifle leaning against the barrier next to him, the flesh of his hand hissing as it burned and melted, and spun, whipping the rifle directly at Nick, who did his best to dodge the projectile, but the buttstock slammed into Nick's left shoulder as he was trying to duck out of the way. The impact turned him and he fell to his knees against the blast wall once more, never letting go of his pistol. The pain was manageable but the blow disoriented him, having just been concussed by the massive fuel and ammo explosion. He tried to shake off the dizziness and the bright stars he was seeing.

He regained his senses in moments, but Jeff was nearly on top of him. He tried to bring his pistol up but Jeff's fist was already sailing at Nick's face. It never connected. There was a loud boom from over the barrier, behind Nick and Jeff staggered back three steps, with nine smoking holes through his torso. Nick heard the pump action of the Mossberg before it fired again, sending the zombie stumbling back even further. He knelt, leaning forward and aimed down the sights of his Para and began sending .45 caliber rounds through Jeff's chest, neck, and face.

Thom shot Jeff four more times as he advanced through the break in the barriers, striding directly at him, all while Nick was driving round after round into the vital areas of their former teammate. Nick's slide locked back and he quickly reloaded his last mag from the sub load pouch on his leg as Thom fired the last cluster of 00 Buckshot from no more than fifteen feet away, striking Jeff directly in the center of his forehead. The zombie's skull blew apart and the body limply fell back into the mud. There was a moment of silence before they realized they could still hear gunfire from behind the Alamo, where Karina and Marcos were fending off another flank assault. Thom looked at the empty shotgun and then at Nick, tossing it to him before he drew his pistol and went to help Karina and Marcos.

"Thanks mate," he said before rushing off, shouting, "Check on Carter!"

Nick slowly walked across the roadway, reloading the shotgun from the pouch on his vest as he made his way to where Jeff had thrown Carter. Thankfully, Carter was already pulling himself up, coughing and heaving and trying to catch his breath after having the wind punched out of his lungs, even through his ceramic armor plate.

"You gonna make it?" Nick asked him.

Carter gave him a less than enthusiastic "thumbs up" and stumbled around the wall to where he dropped his pistol. He brushed the mud off of the slide, dropped the mag, and started clearing the jammed round before inserting a fresh, clean magazine and racking a round. Nick finished loading the shotgun and side saddle and turned to look at the creature they'd just fought, but the bullet shredded body was no longer there in the mud.

"Shit!" Nick said, darting around the blast wall opening.

Suddenly an arm shot up and grabbed his vest. It pulled with tremendous strength, ripping the vest apart and throwing Nick directly down the drive towards the burning Hazmat section. He was in the air for fifteen or twenty feet before he hit the ground, attempting to roll with the impact as the armor plate on his chest flew out of his carrier into the mud. He slid and rolled another ten or twelve feet before coming to a stop, just in time to look up and see Carter being lifted off the ground by the headless thing, using just its one good arm. Carter emptied his fresh magazine of rounds into its torso as he kicked and fought, but the seemingly indestructible, undead thing continued to hold tightly onto his throat.

The zombie's body convulsed and Nick thought it was due to the close range gun shots, until it started doing almost a wave upwards and a new appendage burst out of its neck. It was a long, thick, mandible tipped, worm-like head that seemed to screech in triumph as it extended up. It stretched out of the torso about four feet long, reaching towards the clouds before it curved back down, like a snake about to strike. Lightning flashed as Nick helplessly tried to get to his feet in the slick mud, screaming over the booming thunder as the worm head whipped forward and the mandibles snapped, gruesomely decapitating Carter. His body fell to the mud, twitching and unnatural as the thing slowly turned towards Nick. Its scissor like mandibles clacked and made a guttural spitting noise as it walked awkwardly towards him.

Rage took over and Nick charged, blasting with the Mossberg with all the speed and ferocity he could summon. After getting tossed and thrown around so much, the radio pouch had gotten torn off of his vest and the radio, along with his Peltor headset, was lying in the mud of the central drive, but the increased volume didn't even register as he charged. The buckshot ripped into the creature, the first shot striking it in the left side of its abdomen, from its hip to its chest. The next was dead center in its belly, shredding what little clothing remained. As he got closer he watched the next cluster of 00 Buck amputate its already mangled right arm, just above the elbow. His forth shot struck dead center mass, punching a fist sized hole in its chest, spraying gore behind it. It stumbled back, roaring in pain as it started falling over. His last two rounds hit its legs, decimating its right thigh and mangling its left foot. He pumped the action again and pulled the trigger, hearing the click of the empty chamber.

Nick was heaving breaths of cold night air, but his body was hot with anger. Steam was rising off him like a hot cloth on a winter night. He could still hear the thing trying to spit and gurgle, so he pulled back the slide, combat loaded another shell into the chamber from the side saddle, and pushed the slide forward chambering it as he stepped over the creature. He shot it point blank in its freakishly hideous mandible head. All movement stopped and the thing was silent. Just for good measure, he repeated the process and watched, satisfied, as the second shot ripped into its unmoving worm head, spraying disgusting grayish green goo up out of the wounds.

He backed away, numbly reloading the last four shells, as Thom, Marcos, and Karina appeared around the side of the Alamo. They looked around, in shock, until a lightning flash revealed the monstrous mutation in the center of their camp. Their attention was drawn to the hideous thing and, while they wanted to see just what the hell it was, none of them were eager to get too close to it. Nick was still catching his breath, the remains of his torn vest hanging awkwardly on his shoulders.

Thom looked around, concerned, "Where's Carter?"

Nick looked at him and nodded his head in the direction of their dead friend. As Thom and Marcos strode over another flash of lightning revealed the fate of their friend at the creature's hands. Marcos sank to his knees in the mud next to Carter's body, hanging his head in defeat. Thom turned around with renewed vigor, shouting curses as he started stomping on Jeff's deformed corpse.

"This fucking piece of shit! Fucking goddamn virus cunt motherfucker! I will kill every last one of you FUCKS!"

Nick looked at Karina, who had a deep sorrow in her eyes. He could tell that she hated seeing what these bio-weapons could do and that she cared about the victims who suffered because of them. In spite of the violence he had just been through, he found himself admiring what a noble cause it was she fought for.

Then Thom screamed in pain as a tentacle like appendage whipped out of the amputated right arm and whipped him across his face. It struck like a bull whip, cutting deeply into the skin of his cheek and brow. He nearly fell over, stumbling back, clutching his face as blood flowed over his hands. The rest of them had no time to react as the tentacle continued its motion and slammed into Nick's side. It felt like someone had swung a baseball bat and once more he was knocked to the ground, sliding in the mud. He lost the shotgun and felt his vision dim. The ringing in his ears swiftly picked up intensity until it was almost unbearable and he could feel himself about to pass out.

Karina watched the thing strike Thom and Nick with powerful blows in the same motion and was able to just barely dodge the tentacle as it struck out at her last. She shoulder rolled firing wildly with her Beretta as she sprinted to where Nick was laying, intent on getting him out of harm's way, but she nearly fell over when she yanked on the drag handle of his vest and the torn thing just ripped off of him. All she could do was kneel at his side, take aim with her pistol, and watch as the thing continued to mutate even further.

There was a sickening tearing sound coming from Jeff's body and she could see thin appendages ripping out of the torso, like his ribs were popping out of the skin to form legs. It picked itself up on its new limbs as the intact left arm shook and split open, forming a wicked, jagged edged, pincer. There was nothing human left of the man, just a deformed, terrifying thing that screamed a shrill scream, spitting green goo out of the pulsating wounds from its neck.

It reared back, preparing to strike Karina and Nick even as she emptied the rest of her magazine into it. With nothing else she could do to stop it, she simply covered Nick's body with hers and waited for the blow, knowing that there would be no recovery from this. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, but a roaring war cry from the huge Australian made her snap her head back up. Thom had the thing in a giant bear hug and was wrestling it into the Alamo. She watched it stab its multiple bone protrusions into his legs, arms, and through his chest as he pulled at the thing.

"Noooo!" she screamed, as the mandibles clamped down at the base of his neck, but the Aussie was as solidly built as any professional athlete and, while the mandibles sunk deeply into his flesh, muscle, and bones, they could not finish him off in one shot.

Blood flowed thickly from Thom's mouth as he yelled again, summoning every last ounce of anger and strength in his body, and hauled the thing up in the air, slamming it onto the floor of the Alamo and holding it in place, screaming "DO IT!"

She saw Marcos dash inside the med shed and watched him look away as he threw a lever, just as lightning flashed, burning the moment into her retinas. The five inch thick, fifteen hundred pound, steel blast door fell just as it was designed to do. It slammed into place, slicing right through both Thom and the creature. Thankfully, the thunderclap drowned out the sound of their friend being crushed, sliced in half long-ways, by what was supposed to be a life saving mechanism. Then there was just the sound of the pouring rain and the trio of survivors gasping for air, staring at the aftermath of a desperate sacrifice.


	15. Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

Camp Kent, Edonia

20 Miles south of the capital, Antrusia

10:02 pm September 19th, 2010

Nick had managed to keep himself from passing out, but the amount of pain and misery he was in made him feel like he should have just given in and gone to sleep right there in the mud. Marcos had joined Karina and Nick and tried to go about examining his injuries, but after a cursory look he stopped and sat in the mud beside them. For minutes, none of them could move or even speak. They just stared at the destruction and carnage around them as the rain continued to pour down.

"We should get inside, out of the rain," Marcos finally said.

"I need a minute," Nick said, grimacing in pain.

While he picked himself up and waited for the latest bout of dizziness to subside Marcos and Karina went and scrounged up a fuel can from the back of the gun truck that had wrecked on the road. Nick located his mud caked radio and Peltor headset and then went about collecting their weapons, bringing his shotgun and sniper rifle to his connex and then going back to retrieve Carter's rifle and pistol, in an effort to gather any remaining ammo, as well as Carter's radio and headset. Thom's rifle and equipment were crushed by the blast door, but Nick was able to recover the big man's sidearm, taking a few moments to silently thank his brother for doing what he'd done.

When Marcos and Karina returned they decided to run only one of the small generators built into the connexes, because of the limited amount of fuel. They got the generator inside Marcos's container filled and running, turning on the heater and checking the communications array. While it ran through its Built in Test, they decided to get cleaned up. The trailers had a water collection and filtration system, and the pouring rain gave them more than enough water to all get showered and wash the mud off of their gear, as long as they waited a bit for tank to get heated up. They all sat down and started by cleaned their guns, which were all caked with mud and carbon from all the ammo they'd gone through over the last 24 hours.

Nick spent extra time working on the M24 while Marcos got Karina situated to get cleaned up, giving her a sweat suit to wear so she could dry her clothes after washing them in the shower. While she was showering Nick and Marcos took turns examining each other's burns and other injuries. Other than minor cuts and scrapes and the killer headaches they both were suffering from, the only major concern was the bruising on Nick's right side, where he'd been struck by the monster's tentacle. Marcos was fairly certain that the ribs weren't broken, but Nick was damn certain that it hurt like hell. Marcos and Nick each took a double dose of Motrin to help dull the ache.

Karina came out and Marcos helped her hang her clothes near the heater to dry them. She looked over at Nick, who was standing up and about to head outside, staring at his shirtless torso with the large bruise and several burn marks.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

He turned around and looked at her, smiling weakly, "I'll be fine. It only hurts when I laugh, or cry, or breathe."

She chuckled and Marcos just snorted at the dumb joke, telling Karina, "He got that lame ass line from a Spiderman comic. I'm fine too, by the way." That remark made her laugh as Nick walked out, back into the cold. After getting some warmth in the heated trailer he found the chill night air and soaking rain even more miserable.

He went into his dark trailer and, using his flashlight, grabbed some clean clothes and wrapped them up in his waterproof jacket to keep them dry out in the rain, shivering as he worked. Next he pulled out a modular chest rig that he had planned on wearing on foot patrols and recon missions. It had an ammo pouch for rifle rounds similar to the one that was ruined on his destroyed plate carrier, a radio pouch, a utility pouch for his First Aid Kit, and another utility pouch with his compass, a map, headlamp, and an extra pair of earplugs. He hadn't loaded it out with munitions yet, so, with the exception of his utility pouch, the chest rig was empty.

Then he dumped out the contents of his soaked go bag, along with Carter and Thom's, to organize the contents and redistribute the remaining ammunition. He had grabbed the single boxes of .45ACP from both Carter and Thom's go bags, added them to their supply along with the last pair of 40mm HEDP grenades Thom had carried as well. They were completely out of 5.56mm NATO ammo, so Carter's rifle was useless to them, but there were plenty of AK-47's and AKM's lying in the mud around the camp. It would take them quite a while to gather a good amount of ammo from all the bodies, though, so he went about organizing what they already had.

After loading all four of his empty pistol magazines he refilled the pouches on his leg rig. With his 1911 already loaded, he was back up to carrying forty-eight rounds of pistol ammo. There was plenty left over to top off Marcos's supply, bringing his friend back up to four full magazines also. He still had the Beretta and its three extra mags, which he'd taken from Levi, and after Karina was topped off the rest of the 9mm would go to Marcos to load in his MP5 magazines. All told, they had enough 9mm ammo to fill all seven of Marcos's thirty round magazines. He placed the ammunition, including the grenades, for his companions in a satchel that he used on scout recons, intent on giving it to Karina.

Next he took the two boxes of shot shells, each containing five rounds of 00 Buckshot, loaded two in the magazine tube to bring it to six and filled the six slots of the side saddle also. The remaining pair of shells he jammed in the utility pouch with his map and compass. Lastly, he did the same for his sniper rifle, using seven rounds to load the weapon's internal magazine and stock pouch before stuffing the remaining eight in the pouch centered on his chest rig. He repacked the emergency survival kit, pair of water bottles, first strike ration, toothbrush and toothpaste, and spare batteries for his gun light and night vision. He also gathered up some extra socks, underwear, a T-shirt and his deodorant, stuffing them in a Ziplock bag before packing them also.

As he stood up to go clean up he glanced into his dark trailer. He heard thunder rolling outside as the storm moved on, away from the battlefield that used to be their camp. A particularly loud thunderclap sparked something in his mind and he suddenly remembered something from earlier that night. Leaving his gear he quickly dashed over to Jeff's container and grabbed the Toughbook off of the bloody desk. He stopped by his room to grab the satchel of loaded magazines, his hygiene kit, and a pile of clean clothing he had prepared before he went back to join Karina and Marcos.

He stepped inside from the cold and felt the warmth of the trailer, which made him shudder. Seeing this, Karina said, "He just now went into the shower, sorry. You must be freezing."

"It's alright," he said through chattering teeth. He dropped his stuff and pulled a hooded sweatshirt over his head. He could feel the cold water fall from his hair and drip down his back, just tiny little reminders of how miserable it is to be wet in the cold.

"I grabbed this," he said, holding up the laptop, "Now that we have power we can see what Jeff was trying to tell us… you know, before he killed Carter and tried to kill us."

She nodded and said, "Alright, should we wait for Marcos?"

"I suppose so," he said. Then he paused for a second as he remembered something else. The shivering stopped and he studied her eyes as he asked, "After he smacked me, at the end there, were you shielding me from him?"

She looked at the floor, letting her hair cover her face as she cleared her throat, saying "I owed you from the other night, in the Humvee."

"Thank you," he told her.

She smiled and blushed just a little bit, "Now we're even."

"I guess so," Nick said.

He went back to shivering as he set the laptop up on the desk, plugging it in to the power cord. He pressed the power switch and shoved his hands in the belly pocket of the hoody while he waited for it to boot up. Nick noticed Karina staring at the laptop, eyeing a smear of blood along the base.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

She looked at him and said, "I am sorry that I brought all this trouble on you, that your teammates, your friends, were killed because of it."

Tears welled in her eyes and she bit her lip to stop it from trembling. Nick was at a loss for words; comforting others wasn't really his strong suit.

After a few moments he told her, "It's awful that it happened, but it isn't because of you Karina. You would be dead if we hadn't gotten involved and all of this would have happened here in Edonia anyways. Eventually we would have found ourselves up against this, one way or the other. Because of you we have some idea of what is going on and we have a plan… a very loose plan, but a plan nonetheless."

She wiped away the tears forming in her eyes and smiled at him, saying, "I am just, very glad that you were there."

He smiled warmly, unable to look away from her pale blue eyes. "Me too," he told her.

After a few moments the bathroom door opened and they were pulled out of the trance, turning awkwardly to look at the laptop. Marcos simply stood still in the doorway and his eyes flicked between the two of them, squinting.

"I'm interrupting something, aren't I?" he asked.

"Uh, no," Nick told him, pointing at the desk, "We're just waiting for Jeff's Toughbook to boot up. I wanted to see what he was trying to tell us."

"Uh huh," his friend grunted, suspiciously.

Nick gestured at the satchel full of ammo and said, "There's two more forty mike-mike, and a bunch of nine millimeter there along with plenty of forty five. I put Carter's radio in there for you, Karina, and just put on a charged battery."

Marcos nodded and put a hooded sweatshirt on over his clean black T-shirt as the laptop chimed and the login screen appeared. Nick quickly typed in the standard DSG login name and password and was relieved to see that Jeff hadn't changed it as the Windows program loaded up. They waited while it continued loading the desktop and, when it was ready, they saw an icon for a video file in the center of the screen. Nick double clicked on the icon and they waited a few seconds as the video player opened.

When the video started playing they saw Jeff, barely visible on the screen, having been in the dark trailer illuminated only by the glow of the LCD screen. He was shaking and his eyes were dark yellow, and the pupils were tiny, almost invisible. There were cuts all over his face and blood was everywhere, as though he'd been beaten, and the veins in his neck and on his brow were dark and bulging. He began to speak through clenched teeth, grunting in pain and exerting great effort to send them the message.

"If you're watching this, then I'm dead, or worse."

His eyelids flicked, as if he couldn't focus and he covered his mouth with his cracked and bleeding hand as he hacked and coughed. After a moment he gasped, breathing deeply, and was able to continue.

"I hope you guys are okay, Thom, Ibrahim, the rest of you, I hope I didn't do anything horrible to you. He wants me to, I can feel it. He keeps telling me to kill you all, like I did to the locals… I'm so sorry."

He began to break down and sob, but went into another coughing fit, spraying blood between his fingers. He gritted his teeth and clenched his eyes shut, enduring some agonizing pain for a few long moments before he was able to continue. His breathing became more rapid and shallow as he sat there.

"Urchenko did this to me. They took me to him… I know where to find him…"

He grunted again, crying out, pressing both of his palms against his temples. Black liquid formed under his eyelids as he writhed in pain. Then he suddenly looked up, intensely staring into the camera.

"They left my watch on me….. arrgggg… check… way… point…."

As soon as he forced the words out through his clenched teeth, ground so hard that the trio watching the video could hear them cracking as he spoke, he exhaled and sat, completely still and slack faced. He looked like he'd died right there in front of them. The video continued to play, showing him sitting hauntingly lifeless before their eyes.

"Jesus Christ," Marcos breathed.

Nick glanced at Karina who was covering her mouth with her hands. Her eyes were full of pity and sorrow. Marcos' expression was of pain and anger. He turned back to the screen, unable to stop the video in spite of how awful it was to see Jeff in that state.

Nearly a minute of silence passed before they were surprised when Jeff suddenly looked up and spoke again, this time more clearly, without showing any pain or effort, but sounding as though someone else was speaking through him, "This is your fate. Come. Embrace it." Then Jeff reached up and stopped the recording, freezing on a final frame of his dull, lifeless eyes.

Nick ran his hands through his hair, breathing deeply before he turned to face his two companions. He didn't know whether to be angry or grieving or thankful that Jeff had maintained enough humanity to help them. Being an avid multisport competitor, running marathons and competing in triathlons, Jeff always wore a Magellan Switch GPS watch. He used it to track his speed, distance, and heart rate for races, but he could also use it for basic navigation. If Jeff had been taken to Urchenko's headquarters and marked an accurate waypoint, then maybe they would be able to find the elusive warlord and put an end to all of this.

"I'll go out and see if I can find that watch. Get the sat com up and running," he told Marcos, then looked at Karina and said, "If we can pull the last waypoint off of Jeff's Magellan then we'll have a target to give to your people."

They each nodded and Marcos got to work as Nick grabbed his flashlight before going back out in the rain, which was beginning to let up. He started his search in the Alamo, where what was left of Jeff's mutated form was half crushed beneath the steel blast door. There was nothing left of the man that resembled human in the mangled remains. Looking at what happened to him and what happened to Thom in his effort to stop him made Nick queasy. He walked back out, around the side of the stone building and into the drive, where the bulk of their battle had occurred.

He'd been dazed and out of it when Jeff had mutated to his final, unrecognizable form, and if that was difficult for Nick to handle; seeing the pile of discarded remains was nearly unbearable. His stomach churned when he looked at the way the skin and clothing lay in the mud, as though he'd just melted on the spot. He looked away and took a few deep breaths of cold air as the drops of cold rain beat down on his already damp hoodie. Finally, he summoned enough willpower to start combing through the mess looking for that watch.

Inside the trailer, Marcos was helping Karina adjust the radio settings and frequencies. Satellite communications were very secure and allowed individuals to communicate over much longer distances than standard radio frequencies, but you had to know you were sending the message through the correct satellite and that whoever was listening would be able to understand the encryption. Luckily, Karina was very knowledgeable and was able to input the correct settings to contact the B.S.A.A. European Headquarters. She transmitted her first message and received a reply within moments. After a brief exchange of bona fides to confirm she was an actual agent, she proceeded to begin her report.

Nick walked into the trailer with the Magellan Switch in hand, shivering and shaking off what rain he could near the door before he gave the watch to Marcus, who smirked and told him to clean himself up. Nick nodded, feeling more worn out and exhausted than ever. He was sick to death of the rain and cold of that night and could not wait to get out of that camp, to be anywhere but that place. He took a hot shower, which refreshed and relaxed him greatly. His body still ached terribly as he dried himself off and put on his clean clothes, but he felt like a whole person again. He brushed his teeth, shaved the two days of stubble on his face, and combed his hair back under a clean baseball cap. When he went back out into the trailer, Karina was still on the radio handset, listening to whoever was on the other side.

Finally she ended the transmission with, "I understand all and will check in again at 0500. Athena out."

Nick looked at Marcos and said, "I take it you got the waypoint?"

"Sure did amigo," Marcos told him, "but when I checked the maps it didn't really look like much, just the ruins of a monastery on top of a mountain."

Karina stood up and sat on the edge of the desk. "The S.O.U. is already on the ground with a pair of Armored Personnel Carriers but Insurgent forces have attacked the military camp at Stansia airport, outside of Antrusia, so they are cut off from coming to aid us. A pair of S.O.A.s will attempt to link up with us by helicopter to assist us with the rest of the operation, but flying right now is very risky. When I check in again in a few hours we will know more about the status of that operation. If they do fly, our support unit wants to pick up the virus samples when the agents get dropped off, so they can transport them to our lab in Brussels and our scientists can work on an antivirus. Headquarters recommends we move out of this area as soon as we can, however."

"Are we tracking down that waypoint then?" Nick asked.

"I think we should." She answered, "We can try to link up with the reinforcement agents along the way. Marcos helped me select a link up point and we established a communication window with my people. They will reach out to us on my FM frequency at 0900, when they are in route."

"We'll meet them here," Marcos said, pointing it out on the map as he spoke, "It's a very small farming community, no more than a dozen buildings clumped in the center of these fields. It is far enough away from the cities to go unnoticed and our agents should be able to find it easily."

"How much reinforcement are we talking about?" Nick asked.

"There is another pair of Special Operations Agents in route from Budapest, but the SOU teams are confined behind enemy lines at the airstrip still, and Urchenko is amassing a large force to attack the capital now. They will be unable to help us for the time being." Karina answered.

Nick sighed wearily and looked at his two remaining teammates. He found himself doubting what difference the three of them would make after most of their team had been killed already. There weren't really any other options for them, they couldn't just quit and go home anymore. The only way out of Edonia was going to be through the virus infected army of the ruthless warlords trying to overthrow the government. Worse yet, they were outside of the area controlled by friendly forces with no real hope of reinforcement. He didn't want to say it out loud; because he figured Karina and Marcos were thinking the same things he was.

Finally, he said, "That little VW is probably floating down the river now; we'll be on foot from here on out. This isn't going to be easy."

Marcos looked at Karina and then back at Nick before he answered, "We don't have a choice now, so we'll take this fight to them. Let's get away from this place and get some rest."


End file.
